On High Seas
by khohen1
Summary: It’s not that Jack Sparrow is incapable of love, it’s that the only love he’s sure of is his love of the sea. The other ones have always been fleeting. (JackWill)
1. pt 1: Longing

_**Notes:** This series is basically 6 parts, so far, with several drabbles and 'asides' that I've insterted into their correct parts. They're in their correct spot, and labeled as drabble when applies._

**Longing**

It's not that Jack Sparrow is incapable of love, it's that the only love he's sure of is his love of the sea. The other ones have always been fleeting. Lips on lips, skin on skin, a whisper here, a moan there, and an empty bed in the morning. He's too smart to think that fairytale romances can ever happen. Love isn't kind, and it's not neat, and it's never easy. Love is lust and infatuation and obsession, all rolled up into one messy, incongruent, ever-maddening ball of inevitable hurt.

Not that he knew from experience. Not direct experience anyway. By the time he was old enough to love truly he'd seen too much. He'd seen too many women cheat, and lie, and fall out of love. He'd seen too many men complain into their glasses half full of Rum about the woes of women, vowing they'd never touch another only to go home with the barmaid an hour later.

And to be fair, he'd seen the flip side of that too. Women being strung along, women that were made promises the men knew they wouldn't keep. He'd seen men lie with a smile on their face and fistful of diamonds behind their back as they backed out of rooms. He'd seen women cry crocodile tears as the man they'd thought loved them left them without a backward glance.

So Jack made it a practice to never promise them anything, and to sleep with them a nominal amount of times. One was his goal, but twice sometimes if he were stuck in a town for more than a day and the prospects weren't good. He never told them he loved them, and he never told them he'd be back. He wasn't oblivious to the fact that some women thought those sentiments were implied though, and was rarely surprised to be slapped across the face by those women should he cross their paths again.

Love's something he's always thought he was capable of, though. Something that, if given the right conquest, he'd be quite good at. He just hadn't found the person that was worthy of it just yet, and he wasn't sure he ever would.

The sea though. The sea he never doubted in. The sea always ebbed and flowed, and it was always there for him. Sometimes the sea was angry, and he'd nearly lost his boat on any number of occasions, but the sea never held grudges. The same day it tried to capsize him and his men would be the same day it would break and calm, letting the ship pass with nary a squall to contend with.

When the sea urged him in the direction of Port Royal he didn't question it. He never knew where he was being led when it decided to guide him, but the sea was older and wiser than he so he let it direct him at it's will. Gibbs warned him they were heading into the Commodore's waters minutes after he'd come to the same conclusion and was quickly joined by Annamaria shrieking that they should turn about immediately. He shushed them with a typical off-putting glance and flick of the wrist. 'I'm the Captain of this ship, mates,' he'd said. 'And I'll say where we dock.'

He looked up at the darkening sky and smiled at the rain clouds forming. They will be docking that night, because an angry sky is an angrier sea, and Jack knew better than to risk disobeying a sky as dark as that one. They docked just before dusk and he set his crew up in a tavern at the town five miles to the east of Port Royal.

It wasn't the first time he'd thought of Will since their parting. He'd thought of him often in the months following that day on the parapet. He'd thought of him as he went to sleep, and as he woke up in the morning. He'd thought of him when he drew the sails in, and he even thought of him when he looked at the sword by his side. 'I bet he'd make one even better than this,' he'd think to himself.

His feelings for Will were confusing though. Jack had never been one to keep acquaintances for long, be they male or female. The last through and through friend he'd had, though, had been old Bootstraps, so perhaps it was fitting that the longing he had for a friend would be his son. It wasn't just a friend he wanted in Will though, and that's where the confusion came in.

Old Gibbs was faithful and true, and he stood by Jack's side like a faithful first mate should. Jack had no queries as to where Gibbs' alliances lay, and he would, and did, trust the man with his life. He didn't trust him with his thoughts though, or his past, or his feelings, or his true nature. He didn't trust anyone with those, and he hadn't trusted Will with those either.

But he wanted to. He wanted to tell Will about the sadness that enveloped him at night sometimes when the Rum had gone through his blood quicker than he'd expected it too. He wanted to hear Will laugh at him when he made a particularly stupid comment, which he did on a regular basis. Gibbs would nod, and smile at him, and aye-aye him to his heart's content, but that's not what he wanted when he took his Captain's hat off. Not anymore anyway.

Which is not to say he pined for him. Pining was not something Jack Sparrow did. These thoughts were fleeting, and lasted just long enough to give him an itch in his heart. He'd quell it with Rum, and a good hearty laugh with his crew. After, he'd retreat to his quarters where he'd usually fall flat on his face, asleep before his nose hit the pillow. He didn't think about Will all that much really, and most of that was because when he caught himself thinking about him he'd bellow out a change of plans to his crew and get lost in the banalities of being the captain of a ship that no-one could catch.

The thing about Will that got to him wasn't his charm or his good looks. Jack was not drawn to the boy for his external accoutrements. It was something a little more visceral than that. A likeness he saw of himself in the boy. As if somehow Will embodied all that Jack could have been had he led a different life. The kindness, the softness, the earnestness that Jack had possessed when he was just a young boy following his father was echoed in Will's eyes. It was something Jack both hated and admired in the boy, but mostly it was something that terrified him to his core.

All the hurt that Jack had dealt with in his life that hardened and turned to stone over the years, only growing rounder and rougher as each year added it's layers. There was something though that Will was able to penetrate, even in his absence. It was ridiculous for the boy to have had such an affect on him in such a short span of time, but the resemblance to his father was so strong that Jack attributed it to the fact that he'd felt the same for Bootstraps as well.

He was almost surprised to find himself at the swordsmith's shop hours after docking. He felt betrayed that his feet had led him straight to the doors of the man who he'd been trying to forget without him even knowing. He grumbled to himself as he saw the red coat of one of the Commodore's army rounding the corner and knew he had no choice but to go in.

He closed the door silently behind him, because Jack was nothing if not swift, and was immediately socked in the gut by the image of Will standing over his kiln, sculpting whatever it was he sculpted. Whatever illusions Jack harbored about his feelings for Will were dissolved in that second, leaving him stuck to the wall as the realization dawned on him.

His love was now for two things... the sea, and Will.

"Careful," he said teasingly, taking two steps toward Will's turned back. "Get that too hot and you're liable to drip it in places you'll never get the sting out of."

Will whirled around fast enough to give anyone a neck ache and the poker would have singed the Captain's hair had he not been agile enough not to jump back so quickly. His mouth opened three times before he shut his jaw in a determined line and slowly put the poker down on the workbench beside him.

"Two years I don't see you," Will said, a ghost of a smile appearing on his face. "And you greet me with instruction on how to do something I've been doing half my life?"

Jack winked at him, walking around the shop, picking things up as he passed tables of saws and handles, dropping them on adjoining tables haphazardly. "Such a little shop," he said quietly, looking slyly at Will. "One would think the governor's son-in-law would have a bigger..."

"One would think that," Will said, abruptly turning around to resume what he'd been doing. "And perhaps were I the governor's son-in-law I would."

Jack covered the shock with a scowl and studied Will's stiff posture with a once-over. "Come again, mate?"

"The fact of the matter is, Jack," Will said, looking at him for a moment before turning back to the kiln. "I was never suitable for her."

"Bullocks," Jack said, tossing his hair off his shoulder and stepping towards Will. "She's not the kind of lass to let that..."

"She's not, but she is the kind of girl to follow her father's orders when he's dying," he said softly.

Jack paused briefly in his trek, his fingers fluttering in the air as he searched for the right question to ask to get Will to meet his eyes. "Dying," he repeated finally, trailing his hand along the edge of the table, keeping a watchful eye on Will.

"In London," Will said softly. "Where all the good doctors are, and Elizabeth is by his side."

"And here you sit," Jack said, furrowing his brow. "Making swords while your love's father dies."

Will faced him, an angry mask on his face. "You know nothing of it."

Jack held up his hands, silently championing his ability to get Will to face him. "No harm meant, love... just figured you for the type to stand by her side."

"And there is no where I'd rather be than by her side," he said in an angry growl, his voice trembling. "But he's forbidden it, and she's respected it."

"How long has..."

"18 months," Will said, turning back to his task.

Jack leaned against the table, running a hand over his goatee. "You've had a long wait, haven't you," he said softly. "Since I've been gone, nearly."

"And three months since I last heard from her," Will said in a voice that was barely audible. "A steep drop off from her once a week correspondence a year ago."

Jack nodded, licking his lips. "Will..."

"Why are you here?"

"Will," Jack said, his voice a bit louder. "Face me."

Will hung his head slightly. "I'm busy, Jack... you can't just waltz in unexpectedly and ask me to drop..."

"Face me like a man, Will Turner," Jack said in his most authoritative voice.

Will turned to him, his eyes filled with unshed tears. "What," he asked, his voice showcasing his desperation.

Jack stepped forward, clasping a hand soundly on Will's shoulder, bending closer to him to look him dead in the eye. "It's time you had a drink or two, mate."

"I have to..."

"No one 'has to' anything, love," Jack said softly, smiling at him and winking. "Come... drink with your old friend Captain Jack Sparrow. It would be rude not to."

Will smiled softly. "Well far be it from me to be rude to the man that saved my life," he said softly.

Jack nodded in satisfaction, darting his eyes to the door. "Let's find a tavern out of town, shall we? Wouldn't do to get me caught by Norrington's men. Can't risk what almost happened last time, savvy?"

Will nodded, laughing slightly. "Jack Sparrow," he said whistfully, allowing Jack to sling an arm around him as they walked out of the shop. "Two years is too long, friend."

"I know, love," Jack said, winking at him. "But absence makes the heart grow fonder. Ye must be full up to your eyeballs by now, aye?"

Jack stared dismally into the nearly black depths of his drink, silently seething as Will held back another set of tears. Two hours they'd been sitting in the tavern, Will not having even finished his first drink and Jack on his fifth. He didn't know what to do any more to sooth his friend's pain, and somehow it had managed to seep into him as well. Feeling other's pain wasn't something Jack was used to anymore, it wasn't something he'd done in the 20 years he'd spent out on the sea.

"I should just accept it," Will said finally, shaking his head and finally draining the remnants of his ale. "She's not coming back to me."

"You don't know that, mate," Jack said, glancing at him. "Perhaps the old man's gone and died and she can't make herself pick up the pen to tell you."

Will shook his head. "Norrington said he's still doing well," he said softly. "Said he's bedridden, but looking well."

Jack frowned for a moment, peering over the top of the glass at Will. "Norrington?"

Will's smile faded as quickly as it came, but the appearance of it lifted Jack's spirits enough for it to count. "He's a good man, Jack... a little dogged, but a good man."

"Dogged," Jack snorted. "Stiff you mean."

Will snorted a laugh. "That too, yes."

"You're too sensitive, tha's all," Jack said, reaching over and hitting Will lightly on the hand.

"No, Jack," Will said quietly. "Her letters have been coming less frequently for some time now, each one getting shorter and shorter... less personal."

Jack bit his lip to keep from letting out the litany of curses he felt boiling in his stomach. His anger at Elizabeth wasn't what Will needed right now. "Father's dyin', love," he said softly. "That's bound to take the joy out of your correspondence habits."

"Don't placate me, Jack," Will said, gritting his teeth slightly. "I'm not a fool."

Jack shrugged, sighing. "What do you want me to say, mate? You want me to say she's not worth it? She's just a nice skirt to chase and leave once you've gotten your fill? You want me to say you're right, she's gone and found someone else? Tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it."

"Do you think that," Will asked, his eyes too vulnerable and raw for Jack to meet fully. "Do you really think she's not worth it?"

"Who am I," Jack said softly, smiling at him. "Jack Sparrow doesn't do love, remember? It's me and sea, and there's no room for three."

"I should do that," Will said softly, his finger tracing the rim of his glass. "Maybe I'd be happier if I didn't love..."

"Happy," Jack said with a snort. "Happy's not what it's about, Will."

Will looked at him, frowning. "You're not happy?"

"Happy isn't something you can rely on, love," Jack said. "My first mate, that's what I can rely on. The sea, she's what I can rely on. My ship, my crew, my gold... reliable. Happiness? Love? Unreliable to their core."

"That's a miserable way to live," Will said, tilting his head to the side. "Nothing makes you happy?"

"Sure," Jack said, shrugging. "A good roll in the hey with some bonnie lass, that makes me happy. A good pillaging, that makes me happy. Getting away from the Commodore's of the world, that makes me happy."

"And after that's worn off?"

Jack shrugged, raising his glass in the air. "It's onto the next, mate," he said, tilting the glass and draining it of the dark mahogany fluid.

"You know the only thing that makes me happy anymore," Will asked softly, drumming his fingers lightly on the wooden table top. "A well balanced sword. Seems it's the only thing I can do right these days."

"Then you make as many well balanced swords as you can," Jack said, leaning forward. "You make your own, love... can't count on anyone else to do it for you."

Will took a deep breath, letting it out slowly with a puff of the cheeks. "Can I pull up a spot of your floor," he asked, looking at Jack. "Don't feel up to making the five miles back to Port Royal."

Jack frowned, nodding his head. "Course you can. You don't even have to ask."

Will stood, smiling at him sadly. "Just tell me where it is... I'll see myself to it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jack said, standing and throwing a few coins on the table. "We'll both go."

"No, I don't want to ruin..."

"Ruin nothing," Jack said, smiling and shaking his head at Will. "I say again, mate... too sensitive."

Jack was disrobed and lying in bed before Will returned from the bathhouse, sitting up and looking over the few maps he'd brought with him to shore. "Forget the floor," he said. "Hard as anything down there."

Will looked at the narrow space between the bed and the wall and looked warily at the bed. "I've slept on harder surfaces..."

"No point to it, mate," Jack said with a wink. "I won't bite any harder than you want."

Will eyed the bed before sitting down to take his shoes off, toeing off his socks. Standing he stripped down to his long johns, faltering before taking off the top half to match Jack's state of undress. Pulling the sheets back he cast a shy glance at Jack's profile. "Sure you don't mind sharing your bed," he asked.

"Get your ass under the covers," Jack said, laughing at Will's hesitance. "I say, you'd think you'd never shared a bed with anyone before."

"Not with a man I wasn't related to," Will said, sliding under the covers and pulling them up to his chin. "Have you?"

"Aye," Jack said with a nod, putting the maps down on the floor beside him. "More times than I can count in my feeble head." He frowned, wiggling his fingers in the air. "Knew most of them too... I think."

Will laughed, running a hand through his hair before propping his head up in the crook of his bended arm. "I'm glad you came back," he said, looking at him. "Even if just for a day."

Jack smiled at him, hoping the amount of joy that comment gave him didn't show. "The wind tells me where to go, I just follow."

Will laughed, looking up at the ceiling. "And here I was thinking you came to see me."

"Didn't say there weren't benefits, love," Jack said softly, hunkering down in the bed slightly and looking at the spot on the ceiling that Will seemed to be transfixed by.

"You do that so easily," Will said, glancing at him.

Jack frowned, his fingers lacing together over his stomach. "Do what, love?"

"That," Will said, propping himself up on one elbow to look closer at Jack. "Say love... call me love."

Jack glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Does it bother you?"

Will smiled, his eyes shifting back to the ceiling. "Not at all. You'd think it would."

"Because most men say it to women and never men," Jack asked with a smirk. "I'm nothing like most men on most counts... shouldn't be a surprise that I'm not like them on that one either."

When Will's eyes shut Jack followed suit despite the fact that he knew chances were he wouldn't be sleeping well if at all that night. He began an internal monologue with himself about the next day at sea because if he didn't he'd be distracted by the warm body beside him, and the last thing he needed was for Will to find him in that state.

"Sometimes I wish we'd never met, Jack," Will said softly, startling Jack out of his thoughts.

"Aye," Jack said, frowning. "Some days I wish I'd never met me-self either."

Will laughed. "Want to know why?"

Jack opened an eye, looking at him. "Why, love?"

Will sighed, a silent tear falling down his cheek. "Because over the past year, aside from Elizabeth, the person I've most felt the need to talk to has been you. I've spent my whole life being the outcast... I thought I was accustomed to the solitude."

Jack felt his throat close for a moment, the itch in his heart beginning to twinge again. "Are you trying to seduce me, Will Turner?"

Will laughed. "I'm just telling you the truth, Jack."

Jack lifted up onto his side, reaching out gently to wipe the tear off of Will's cheek. "I've felt the same longing, love," he said softly. "And if you repeat that, I'll cut your throat." Leaning over he placed his lips gently to the corner of Will's mouth, breaking contact after mere seconds and returning to his side of the bed feeling like he'd just committed a cardinal sin in the Book of Jack Sparrow.

He closed his eyes and willed his resolve to return, biting the inside of his cheek because physical pain is much easier to deal with. He saw a shadow loom over him and squeezed his eyes shut tighter as he braced himself for what would perhaps be a punch to the jaw. He felt soft lips apply themselves to his, a hand hovering over his shoulder before lifting to grip his hair lightly.

He grunted in surprise and his eyes flew open, watching as Will drew back with fear in his eyes. "I'm sorry," Will stuttered out. "I don't..."

Jack darted forward, quick as anything, and grabbed the back of Will's head, pulling him forward and mashing his lips to his. He sighed as he felt Will relax into the kiss, the itch in his heart beginning to abate. His hand wound in Will's hair as his tongue delved into the younger man's mouth, surprised at how easily it was accepted and reciprocated.

The quiet moan escaped from Will's chest almost unwillingly as he sank into the pillow, Jack's lips following him on the trip down. His hand reached up to pass over Jack's face as their kiss deepened, Jack's hand running down the length of his torso slowly. His next moan was echoed by Jack's, and Will's ability to think was drowned out by the roar of arousal and something akin to happiness in his ears.

Jack's nimble fingers worked fastidiously on Will's pants, slipping under when he couldn't quite work the knot. Will grunted as Jack's hand closed around him, his hips bucking involuntarily. He felt Jack laugh lightly into his mouth before pulling back and starting to nibble at his collarbone. "Easy love," Jack mumbled. "Not too quickly."

"Jack," Will hissed, his eyes squeezed shut and his voice strained.

Jack ran his tongue up Will's neck, his teeth tickling lightly as he nipped along the column. "Yeah..."

"Are you... should we..."

"Shut up, love," Jack said bemusedly. "Just feel."

Jack was quick and nimble, and Will's climax came a little faster than he intended for it to. He was slightly disappointed when Will's shuddering sighs subsided, but he withdrew his hand and kissed him lightly on the lips before turning on his back. He expected Will to fall asleep and was pleasantly proved wrong when Will covered his body with his, kissing him with more passion than he had before.

Will's fingers weren't as callused as Jack's, but they were callused enough to not be feminine, and Jack sighed as his thumb brushed over his nipple. "Wanted this," he ground out between kisses. "Some time now."

"Me too," Will whispered, reaching his hand into Jack's pants, echoing the movements Jack's hand had been making minutes before. "Dreamt about it..."

"Did you," Jack asked, pulling Will's head back to look in his eyes.

Will licked his lips, nodding. "I did," he said, bending down and kissing Jack slowly as he pumped his hand faster and faster.

When they both lie spent Jack allowed himself a small smile, his fingers splaying through Will's hair as Will's hand ran absentmindedly down his chest. Bending his head he rested his lips to the top of Will's head, breathing in the scent of sweat and soap and dust. "Night turned out a might better than it started," he said softly.

Will laughed lightly. "It did," he said.

Jack looked down at Will, feeling the itch in his heart come back a little bit. He closed his eyes for a moment, opening them to stare at the ceiling once again. "Will?"

Will lifted his head, looking at him. "Yeah?"

"Come back to the Pearl," he said softly. "It's because of you I have her back, and... it's just not right without you."

Will smiled. "Ask me to come back because you want me to, and I will."

Jack looked at him, smiling softly. "Come back because I want you to, love."

Will smiled, nodding his head. "When do we ship out?"


	2. pt 2: Degrees of Decency

**Degrees of Decency **

For most of his life he had loathed piracy. He had done so because his mother had, and because most decent people did. He considered himself a decent person, and when told horror stories of the atrocities that pirates committed, he never stopped to think that perhaps stories were blown out of proportion.

Pirates were scoundrels, and scalawags, and improper. Then again, Will never had been considered exactly proper himself... which perhaps explains the amount of distain he once held for pirates. His hair was unkempt and he lived in a dingy room full of holes and rats and cobwebs. He'd never been able to attend school like a proper boy because most of his time was spent earning his keep by cleaning other people's messes, or melding other people's swords. He'd taught himself to read, with the help of strangers who took pity on him, and he read as many books as he could get his hands on.

He studied how the likes of the Norrington's of Port Royal walked, and talked, and conducted themselves, and he melded himself accordingly. He did this in the hopes that one day he too would be considered a gentleman, but money spoke louder than actions in that town, and he didn't have enough of it to keep himself properly fed much less enough to purport himself as a true gentleman.

None of this stopped him from staying the course though. He still studied the books he could buy with his lowly salary and he still spoke as well as the best-dressed man in town. He bowed when he saw a lady, and he offered an elbow to elderly people walking over a precarious crossing. He carried his head high, and he held a stiff upper lip even as he heard the people of the upper echelon mocking the scuffing on his shoes or the mislaid hemming of his pant legs.

As a result of this he never truly fit in anywhere. He'd long ago realized he'd never truly be a gentleman in the eyes of the aristocrats, but he'd also alienated the peasants with his high class words and his quest to be as unlike them as he could. He kept to himself most of his life, and he'd become accustomed to it for the most part. It would be a lie to say he never let it get him down that no one would speak to him when he walked through the town, but he never let it show.

Elizabeth had been the only one of the townspeople who never treated him with anything but friendliness, and perhaps a little more than that looking back on it. He'd at one time thought it was pity, but when he was around her she seemed genuine in her demeanor and slowly he fell for her. By the time he was old enough to have feelings for the opposite sex he'd decided she was the only one for him, which wasn't just because she was the only one that gave him the time of day. She was sweet mannered, never condescending, and always had a smile for not just him but anyone she saw.

It had truly never occurred to him that his feelings might be returned until Jack told him what she'd done for him. He'd been resigned to the fact that the likes of him wasn't good enough for someone as classy as her since he was sixteen. It was then that her father had disallowed her to spend afternoons with him in the shop, claiming that a work place was not the proper placing for a lady of her caliber. She'd gone unwillingly, but she'd stayed true to her father's wishes.

To discover that the woman he'd pined after for as long as he could remember could possibly pine for him back was a heady prospect for him to accept. Even after proclaiming his love for her in front of Norrington and her father, and after she'd stepped between Norrington and him and proclaimed her love back, he had trouble accepting it. During their time together he'd worry that he wouldn't be able to provide for her properly. He'd worry that he wouldn't be able to give her what she deserved out of life. Her answer was always to laugh and kiss him, and she never even dignified the thought with a rebuttal.

As time passed though, she began to get tired of his frequent bouts of self-doubt, growing annoyed with him. Sighing instead of kissing him, and telling him to stop it instead of laughing it off. She never stayed annoyed for long, and almost within a blink of the eye she would be planning their wedding and where they would live, looking as happy as ever. He learned to keep his fears inside, and merely stopped voicing them.

When she left for London he felt as if his heart had been broken. She promised to send letters on a weekly basis, and that nothing would change. She said she'd be back as soon as she could, and that she'd dream of him every night. She wrote twice weekly for the better part of the first year, each letter consisting of mundane details of a life of boredom in England, and long passages proclaiming her love for him.

It was the last six months that they began to falter. She wrote once a week for two weeks, once every two weeks for a month, and then only sent two more letter for the next four months. The last letter had been half the length of her last, which was half the length of her first, and in it she'd only dedicated the closing for her profession of love. She seemed to have found the more exciting part of London by that time, and wrote of plays she'd seen, and restaurants she'd gone to. She divulged much less of herself in those last few letters, sticking to facts and details instead of emotions.

Will found himself retreating even further into himself in those months. He spoke when spoken to, and only ventured out of his room when he was required to, for work or food. He buried himself in Elizabeth's books of piracy, wondering why he'd never bothered to read them before. She'd always been somewhat obsessed with the darker tales of life, perhaps because her life was so docile and threat free. The books were flowery, and full of romanticized adventures, and probably 90% untrue.

That's when he found himself thinking of Jack again. The first few months after Jack had left Will had wondered how he was doing, worrying that perhaps Jack had never even been picked up by the Pearl after all. As he and Elizabeth got closer though, his thoughts of Jack retreated to the recesses of his mind, popping up only at odd moments in the middle of the night or when he'd see a boat with dark sails. The books, though, made him think of him more and more often. Made him want to ask Jack if there were any truth to them, or if they were all hogwash.

It turns out that they were, mostly, untrue. The overall feeling of the books though, the pursuit for treasure, the taking pleasure in the small things in life, like oranges and brandy and rum... that was true. The freedom of being on the Pearl, with the wind in his hair and the salty air in his nose, was even more exhilarating the books could have possible been able to explain. Perhaps his favorite part, though, were the tales that were told on board.

After the sails were deflated, and the anchors were dropped, the crew would sit around with their scrapplings of food and their seemingly endless stream of alcohol. Brandy, Rum, Ale... any myriad of drinks were on board at all times, always being replaced before they had the chance to run out. Will himself had found that Brandy was too strong for him, and Rum left a bad aftertaste, but Ale was just about perfect. Jack chided him about his weak palette, but he did it with a twinkle in his eye that let Will know he chided with love.

He'd spent 19 years wondering what his father was like, and aboard the Pearl he found out quite a bit. Gibbs had known him through Jack, and several of the crew had had drinks with him on several occasions. Cotton nodded excitedly when his name was brought up, but his parrot was never able to articulate anything with any semblance of sense, so Will never learned anything from him. Gibbs was the one who talked the most about Bootstrap Bill, but Jack was the one that knew him best. He'd let tidbits out every once in awhile, but never enough for Will.

He tried to be understanding when Jack would back away from the conversation, knowing that the days when Jack knew Bootstrap Bill were days he didn't like much to think of anymore. Those days represented betrayal, and mutiny, and having Jack's livelihood stripped unceremoniously from him. Will tried not to pry too much, but he and Jack argued on more than one occasion on Jack's reticence to talk to him about his father.

"Why, love," Jack said, shrugging and settling back on the hammock, folding his fingers delicately over his slightly grumbling belly. "He's long gone now."

"Because it's important to me, Jack," Will bellowed, not caring if the rest of the crew heard him outside Jack's room. "He was my father!"

Jack sighed, looking lazily at him with one eye. "He was a good man, Will. He was a good man, and good swordsman, and the only one who remained loyal. What else is there to know?"

"Why did he leave my mother," Will asked, sitting on the table in front of Jack.

Jack laughed, rolling his eyes. "You have to ask?"

Will nodded, clenching his hands together, Jack's laugher grating on him. "Obviously, else I wouldn't have, Jack."

Jack turned his head to look at him, running his eyes over Will's face for a moment before continuing. "Will, do you doubt my feelings for you?"

Will sat back slightly, frowning. "What does that have to do..."

"Do you," Jack asked, lifting his head and looking at him.

"No," Will said without hesitance.

Jack nodded. "Good," he said, resting his head back on the hammock. "Then I ask you this, mate... do you think for one second that if you hadn't come with me back to the Pearl, that I would have stayed in Port Royal?"

Will hesitated, licking his lips. "No."

Jack looked at him. "An' why is that, love?"

"Your home is the sea," Will said matter-of-factly, shrugging.

"William Turner was 10 years my senior. That's ten more years he spent on the sea than me, love," he said quietly, looking at the ceiling. "No matter what he might have felt for your mother... which, by the way, I have no way of knowing... nothing would have compared to that."

"But he was there," Will said, his voice full of wonder. "For two years he lived with my Mother and I."

Jack smiled sadly at him. "Which is two years longer than I would have."

"But he had responsibilities," Will yelled, his arm sweeping through the air haphazardly. "A decent man would have..."

"Decent," Jack scoffed, laughing. "What is your obsession with decency, Will?"

Will frowned, glaring at Jack, boring a hole into the side of his head. "It's how a man should behave, Jack."

Jack laughed again, casting a dubious glance at Will. "This coming from a newly made pirate."

"A man can be a pirate and still be decent," Will hissed. "I have rules, I have lines I don't cross... I steal only from those who deserve it."

"Aye," Jack said, nodding. "But you know we don't follow those same rules, mate."

Will frowned, crossing his arms. "I can not control what rules you follow."

"He who lies with pigs, mate," Jack said softly.

Will stood up quickly, kicking a chair nearly half way across the room in the process. "So you're saying I'm no better than a common thief because I associate myself with them?"

Jack looked at him, his face neutral. "Aye."

"I see," Will said, nodding his head.

Jack threw a leg over the side of the hammock, sitting up and facing him. "I guess I never realized you thought we were common thieves though, William."

Will looked at him, his indignation faltering. "Jack..."

Jack held up a hand, smiling a humorless smile at him. "You always have thought yourself higher than us," he said. "I should have remembered, mate."

"You are different," Will said softly, watching as Jack studiously began to pick at his dirt caked nails. Jack never let you see his eyes when he was upset. He never let you see the jaw clench or the betrayal pass over his face. He picked at his nails, and he grinned. The less he spoke, the more offended he was. "Jack."

Jack looked at him, smiling. "Never you mind, love."

Will sighed, sitting backwards in the chair and placing his hands on Jack's knees. "Jack, you are different."

Jack shrugged. "Yes, because I'm honestly dishonest, which somehow makes me honest... I am different in my sameness."

Will sighed, squeezing Jack's thighs. "You're different because you don't steal for greed. You steal enough to get by on."

"Not true, love," Jack said, shaking his head. "We steal more than that."

Will breathed deeply in through his nose. "I don't think of you as a common thief, Jack," he said softly. "I was angry, and I spoke without thinking."

"Anger only reveals what you already feel, love," Jack said, shaking his head and chuckling softly. "I've never said an untrue word while angry... only things I wished I hadn't."

Will sighed, sitting back. "I don't think that, Jack."

Jack nodded, swinging his legs back up on the hammock. "I'm a might tired, Will," he said quietly, still picking at what was probably a hangnail. "So unless you want to join me..."

Will grunted, slamming his hands into the back of his chair. "I'm so sick of you shutting me out, Jack!"

Jack laughed. "I'm not shutting you out."

"You are, Jack," Will said, staring at his stiff posture. "Face me if you're not."

Jack looked at him, chewing on the corner of his lip. "Eye to eye, mate."

"You asked me earlier if I ever doubted your feelings for me," Will said, clasping his hands together.

"Aye," Jack said, nodding.

"Do you know you've never told me," Will asked.

Jack laughed. "Don't have to, love. I show it."

Will nodded. "Yes, you show it," he said. "But you never say it."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Why do I have to," he said, laughing. "Do you need reassurance?"

"No," Will said, shaking his head. "Not on that. But you never share any feelings, Jack," he said, licking his lips. "Any emotion you feel, I have to read. Hurt, betrayal, loneliness, vulnerability, self doubt... I only know you feel those because everyone does, so you must."

Jack shrugged. "What's the point of letting people know, love," he said softly. "Only good that does is let them know your weaknesses." He looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "As you well know, I've had a hard lesson on that one."

"Not by me though," Will said, leaning forward. "Don't you trust me? Didn't you say you've trusted exactly three people?"

"Aye," Jack said, nodding. "You, your father, an' me-self."

Will nodded. "So you should feel free to clue me in, Jack."

Jack sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. "You want to know why I don't talk about your father," he said quietly, tilting his head to face Will.

"I want to know about you, Jack," Will said softly. "You make that nearly impossible."

"Baby steps, love," Jack said softly, looking once again at the ceiling. "William Turner made me what I am today," he said quietly. "Took me under his wing, told me how to be a pirate. Told me how to be a man. Taught me how to look out for me-self, and how to not let other people's thoughts of me affect my thoughts of me-self."

Will watched Jack smile slightly, wondering where this story was leading. "When I took over the Pearl, he was the only one that had faith in my abilities. I was still a pretty young buck, and despite what you may have heard, this swish-swash manner of mine was not learned on that island I was marooned on. I've always been this way."

Will laughed. "I always knew you were never normal."

Jack smiled, looking at him. "He was more the captain of that ship than I, at first," he continued. "I didn't trust myself those first few years. Ran my ideas, my plans, by him first. 'Cause I knew he was the one guy that wouldn't stab me in the middle of the night for himself."

"And then one day he cut me off. Said to never tell him anything before I told the crew. Toughened me up, is what he did. Learned to be my own captain, and in the process learned to be theirs." He turned to face Will, frowning. "An' I was a good captain, Will."

"I've no doubt," Will said, nodding.

"I've told one person, in the entirety of my life, who I truly am," he said softly. "An' that's your father." He paused, his eyes flicking back to the spot of nothingness on the ceiling. "But I never was a satisfactory captain to them. They all turned on me, 'cept him. Wasn't even on the ship when they did it."

"Where was he," Will asked, enraptured by the uncommon earnestness in Jack's voice.

"Dunno, mate," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "On some trip... he and a couple of others went into town that night. Little pillaging, plundering... general merriment." He paused, clearing his throat. "Snuck up on me in the middle of the night, is what they did. Waited till I was asleep, tied me hands behind me back, bag over my face... set off sail to that godforsaken island. Left me with one bullet... you know the rest."

Will nodded, absentmindedly grabbing one of Jack's hands and stroking it with a thumb. "So how do you know he wasn't in on it?"

Jack smiled and shrugged. "Didn't have it in him," he said softly. "Never lied 'bout nothin', not to me. Never would've."

"But..."

Jack looked at him, his eyes serious and leaving no room for questioning. "Didn't have it in him, love."

"You never questioned him," Will stated rather than asked. "Never even crossed your mind that he betrayed you?"

Jack shook his head. "Not once."

Will smiled, nodding. "Pintel and Ragetti, they said the same. Said it never sat well with him what they did to you."

Jack nodded, smiling at him. "He was a good man, Will. Nothing for you to be shamed by."

Will nodded, licking his lips. "Same as you," he said quietly.

Jack laughed. "Reason I don't talk about it is because its too hurtful, Will," he said. "Too fresh... too much of a reminder of what I lost when they betrayed me. Not just me ship... but me best mate." He smiled slightly, shrugging. "More like a father, really."

"Makes us brothers, then," Will said, wrinkling a nose. "Let's not refer to him as your father again, shall we?"

He laughed again, lifting the hand that Will held, kissing Will's hand. "Well hop in," he said, his voice taking on a more lighthearted tone. "Hammock's lonely without you."

Will laughed, stepping around the chair and laying down in the hammock next to Jack, smiling as Jack wrapped him solidly in his arms. "You do show me, you know," he said quietly. "Words wouldn't do it justice."

"What's that, love," Jack asked, locking eyes with him.

"How you feel about me," Will said, smiling and brushing a hand into Jack's hair. "I honestly don't mind that you don't say it... it's the other that bothers me."

"What other," Jack asked.

"You just shut down sometimes," he said softly. "The light goes out of your eyes... jaw goes slack. You start barking out orders and shut me out."

Jack nodded, running his fingers lightly over Will's face. "I know, love."

"I understand it, though," Will said. "Know where it comes from."

"If I thought you didn't," Jack said, smiling down at him. "I never would have taken you with me back to the Pearl."

"I just want you to know that you don't have to hide from me," Will said softly. "That if you ever wanted to... I'd never judge."

"You're nothing if not a good listener," Jack said, chuckling softly. "Still a little too sensitive for the likes of a pirate, if you ask me."

Will laughed. "I suppose I am."

"Swordsmanship makes up for it though," he said, resting his mouth to Will's temple and taking a breath. "Just like your father."

"You always say that," Will says in wonderment. "Don't know how it's possible..."

"Runs in the blood," Jack said. "Can't deny the blood, love."

Will lifted his head to kiss Jack, breathing in the scent of salt and rum. As he pulled back Jack wound his hand in his hair, pulling him back in for a deeper more satisfying kiss. Jack's hand reached around Will, pulling him closer as his tongue delved into Will's mouth. The hammock rocked gently beneath them as they continued, threatening to spill them over.

It was moments like this that showed Will how Jack felt about him. For all the external calluses, all the barriers Jack held himself behind, his kisses were tender and full of passion. His hands were soft on Will's skin, despite the scars and weathered skin. His lips conveyed the message louder than any words ever would, his touches echoing it a million times more than any amount of of I-love-you's could.


	3. drabble: Late One Night

**Late One Night**

A hand made its way slowly down his chest, the sporadic twitch in the fingers just noticeable enough for him to know before opening his eyes that this touch was acceptable. A light kiss was placed to the back of his neck, followed by a hot and wet tongue swirling circles just below his ear. Leaning back slowly he felt the lean body behind him, causing him to smile.

"We just fell asleep," he mumbled in a half protest.

"It's been hours, love," Jack whispered in a low gravelly voice. "An' I haven't slept a wink."

"Then you best get to sleep," Will said, smiling and turning his head further into the pillow so Jack couldn't see it. "We have to wake up early in the morning."

"Shhh," Jack said, hooking a finger around Will's chin and turning his head to him. Smiling predatorily down at him he ran it across Will's cheek. "I've got other plans."

Giving up the pretense of protest, Will closed his eyes and Jack lowered his head to kiss him, lazily winding his tongue into Will's partially open mouth. He sighed softly as Jack's hand trailed down his torso to his waist, and then lower. His hand wound lightly around a clump of Jack's hair, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss.


	4. pt 3: Cleverness

**Cleverness **

If you're nothing else, you have to be clever and you have to be quick. Cleverness can get you out of most debacles faster and safer than any amount of training. He had never been the studious type. He'd never learned to read much beyond a map. People, though, there weren't many out there who could read people better than Jack Sparrow. That, combined with an almost unnatural quickness, is what made him a good pirate.

He might have mumbled a little too much, and he might stumble over his own feet on more than one occasion, but even those were things he'd learned to use to his own advantage. He learned very quickly that if you seemed to know what you were talking about, people's short attention spans would let you pass on that alone. That if he mumbled quickly enough, and with enough confidence in his posture, people would frown in confusion but mostly would let him by.

The most important thing to take note of on a person was his eyes. Most people would say hands, but if the hands sat on the table, palm down, chances were Jack would have more than enough time to grab his sword before his opponent. It's the eyes that give everything away, and most likely long before any actions were taken. Something as simple as a flick of the eye to the right and he knew they were lying.

There's something even more reliable, but less obvious, that Jack relied on when assessing someone's demeanor. There's a certain glint that the unreliable have to their eyes. A rapidness in movement, an inability to meet your eyes, a squinting of the eyes. Sometimes Jack knew ten minutes before his opponent reached for their sword that they would be. By the time the adversary had laid one finger on the handle to his sword, Jack's would be to their throat, glinting in the light.

He also learned very early on that there were no advantages to fighting fairly. Nine times out of ten the other guy wouldn't, so really it all boiled down to who went the route of the unfair quicker. He used his eyes quicker than anything else, and stockpiled the surroundings into his brain almost as soon as he walked in a door. You never knew when things are going to go south, or how quickly, and it was useful to know that if need be he could take two steps back and grab the candle holder on the edge of the bar.

This extended to outside the fighting arena as well, though. He knew the instant that Anamaria and Gibbs relationship went from crewmembers to lovers. He could tell by the way Gibbs would smile at her even when her back was turned, or by the way Anamaria would cast an eye at Gibbs between pulling the sails down and anchoring the boat. He knew that Cotton wasn't comfortable with he and Will's relationship by the way he could never meet Jack's eyes when Will was by his side. He knew where Will's mind was when he would sit at the bow and stare into the ocean.

His posture, the expression on his face, but mostly the sadness in his eyes told Jack that Will still had Elizabeth in his heart. He never brought it up to Jack, and Jack never felt the need to confront him. The crux of having such an accurate barometer for other people's inner thoughts is that more often then not you were able to read things you probably don't want to.

Mostly it didn't bother him. He'd know ahead of time that Will wouldn't forget Elizabeth when his feet touched the Pearl again. He was too smart to think that he would replace the part of Will's heart that Elizabeth had occupied. Elizabeth had been there long before Jack had shown up, and chances were the parts they occupied weren't even in close proximity. He also knew that Will's feelings for him weren't lessened by his lingering feelings for Elizabeth.

He still felt a rise of jealousy sometimes, though. A clenching in his chest that made him want to grab Will and shake the longing for Elizabeth out of him. The words 'forget her, love... I'm here' would stick to the back of his throat when he'd see Will looking out into the abyss with that look in his eyes. More often than not, though, by the time he'd worked himself up enough to say anything, Will's eyes would turn to his once more and his fears would be assuaged by the return of 'his' Will.

It was never anger he felt though. He didn't fault Will for his lingering feelings. In fact, he might have been slightly disappointed should Will's feelings for Elizabeth have abated so quickly. Love never really dies, after all, even if the ability to share in it has. Elizabeth hadn't died, she hadn't even voiced a wish to end her and Will's courtship, she'd just simply faded herself from Will's life. Jack had a suspicion it was more to do with herself than with Will, but he couldn't be sure, and neither could Will.

When they pulled into port in London, Will was quieter than usual, but didn't question. The fact that this was strategic probably didn't even cross Will's mind, and Jack never even tried to hint at him that it was. There was much debauchery to be had in London, and there was no reason to think Jack had any motive other than solid land to sleep on for once and a good tavern or two to satisfy those that didn't have regular opportunity to fulfill their sexual needs.

"You ought to see where they're at, give 'em a visit," Jack said the evening after they arrived as he flopped onto the bed.

"Who," Will asked distractedly, going about the room and lighting a few candles before the room was completely black.

Jack lifted his hat from his eyes, peering at Will. "Elizabeth," he said in a bored tone. "London right? We're here, she's here... makes sense, love." He hated the look of betrayal that passed over Will's face as he realized Jack's motive for docking in London. The hat obscured his eyes from Will's vision, but it didn't hide Will's face from him. He lifted his head to prop into his crooked arm, crossing a leg over the other. "Go on, then."

"I have no inclination to find Elizabeth," Will said, his voice taught with anger and not just a little bit of pain. "Elizabeth is out of my..."

"Aye," Jack said, nodding his head and smiling. "Out of your life. So you've said, love."

"She is," Will said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I have no need to see her."

"Are you believing that? 'Cause I'm not," Jack said, laughing slightly. "Should work on your poker face, Will."

"I've no need," Will said again, sitting on the bed and turning away from Jack to take off his shoes.

"Right," Jack said, swinging his legs over the bed to the floor, his boots clanking loudly on the wooden floor. "S'up to me to find her, then."

Will turned to look at him. "You really think I want to see her," he asked softly, his voice sounding betrayed.

Jack shrugged, a hand coming up to shove the hat further on his head, knowing if Will looked in his eyes he'd be giving away more than he wanted to. "Need, love, not want."

Will looked at him a moment longer, pausing before turning around again and pulling his shoes back on. "Why is that," he asked, finally facing him as he stood. "Why do I need to see her, Jack?"

Jack managed a slight smile that faded before it even began. "You love her, mate."

"I love you, Jack," Will said, shaking his head. "She's part of my past..."

"An' your present, an' your future, an' your forever," Jack said, nodding even as Will began to protest. "An' if you don't know it, then I know you a might better than you know yourself."

Will took a deep breath, his eyes darting around the room. "I thought we were stopping for supplies," he muttered, shaking his head at himself with a rueful smile. "Forgot who you were for a minute there."

"That ya did, mate," Jack said, stepping backwards three short steps to the door. "Shall we go together, or do you prefer it alone?"

Will bent his head, scratching at the back of his neck. "You're wrong," he said quietly. "I've stopped loving her."

Jack nodded, looking away from Will as he opened the door. "Together then."

Will grabbed his coat, shrugging it on in a manner that was much slower than usual. "Don't know where to look," he said softly, walking towards the door that Jack held open for him.

"Start with the letters, love," Jack said, nodding at Will's bag. "The ones you've kept with you."

Will's eyes flicked guiltily towards his satchel, his fingers pinching his lips together before he bent over to grab one out of the side. "Rifling through my belongings, now," he asked, trying to smile even as he found it hard to meet Jack's eyes.

"Actually," Jack said, smiling at him and stepping out of the doorway. "Just wagered a guess on that one... never knew I was right till just now, as a matter of fact."

They walked in silence most of the way, Jack ambling down the street in typical carefree fashion, fingers tapping lightly on his sheathed sword around those that looked like they might like to find out if they had money to spare. They reached the address Elizabeth had resided at last just after 8 in the evening, and Jack looked to Will with a raised eyebrow. When he made no move to knock, Jack raised his ring-clad hand and delivered a jaunty knock on the hard wood, grinning at Will's panicked expression.

The young maid answered the door with a startled expression, drawing her overcoat tight to her chest as she looked warily at Jack. "Yes," she asked. "May I help you?"

"Elizabeth Swann, love," Jack said, bowing gallantly and grinning up at her with a tip of the hat. "Will Turner calling."

"Will," the maid breathed, her eyes flickering to Jack's side finally as realization dawned on her. "Ah," she said, nodding slowly and backing up slightly. "You best wait 'round back then," she said, closing the door halfway with a furtive look around herself. "Governor Swann's resting at home tonight."

"Right, love," Jack said, placing his hat back on his head and smiling again at her. "Round back, then."

Jack began to walk around back but was pulled back by Will's sudden grasp on his arm. "I don't want to do this," he hissed, glaring at Jack. "I can't."

"Why's that," Jack said, raising an eyebrow at him. "She's your past, love... she means nothing to you, you said so yourself. No longer a long lost love, aye?"

"Jack, don't make me," Will pleaded, his eyes filled with a real fear.

Jack ran his eyes down Will's body, the ball of doubt and something akin to fear tightening in his own stomach. "Something you have to do, love," he said despite it, resting a hand on Will's shoulder. "Something you need."

"I can't," Will said, shaking his head.

"You can love," Jack said, his ears perking up as he heard a door bang shut in the near distance. "And you will," he finished, backing up as Elizabeth rounded the corner quickly. He turned and watched as Elizabeth stuttered to a stop in front of him, her face frozen in a mixture of pain and hope. "Evenin' Miss. Swann," he said, tipping his hat to her.

"Jack," she breathed, her eyes flickering past him to Will.

Jack twirled around to peer at Will, whose eyes were positively transfixed on Elizabeth. "You know where the ship's at, love," he called out, waving a goodbye to him. "Goodnight, Miss Swann," he said to Elizabeth, turning quickly on his heel and walking briskly down the dark road again.

By the time dawn arrived, Jack had given up on any sleep that night. He sat on the bed with a map in his lap, trying to ignore the urge to find Will and drag him back to him. He told himself he'd expected this, he'd told himself that the day he'd decided a month back that London would be their next major stop. He fought the anger threatening to take him over by drinking what was left of his Rum and planning their voyage months in the future. He congratulated himself on not demoting Gibbs to second mate and giving first mate to Will.

So when the door opened as the day's break came into stark relief he was nothing if not shocked. He looked at Will with wide eyes that he forgot to hide. "You came back," he said without thinking, blinking dumbly at him.

"Thought you knew me better than I knew myself," Will said, smiling softly at him and shutting the door behind him.

"Aye," Jack said, nodding and lowering the map to the bed beside him. "S'why I'm surprised, love."

"I still love her," Will said softly, walking over to the bed and perching on the end of it.

Jack smiled, nodding. "So not back for long then," he said, feeling almost relieved that he hadn't misjudged the situation, no matter how much that hurt. "Came to say good bye."

"No," Will said, laughing slightly. "Did that once tonight, don't aim to do it again."

Jack licked his lips, anger flaring as he felt hope rise in his chest. Hope was a cursed emotion in Jack's book. Hope led to nothing but heartache, and heartache was something he'd sworn to himself wouldn't happen again. Then, that was before he met Will. Will, who made the Captain go back on a thousand self-taken oaths. "To whom," he asked, squinting at Will suspiciously.

"You were right," Will said, leaning back against the bedpost and crossing his arms. "Seeing Elizabeth again was something I'd feared for a long time. Something I swore to myself I never wanted to do." He smiled, catching Jack's eyes. "Something, though, that you knew I needed to do anyway."

"Always said I knew you better than you knew yourself, love," Jack said quietly, still studying Will's every move. He waited for the 'but,' or any sort of explanation, and didn't find one forthcoming. "Come on, mate... what happened?"

"Norrington told her I'd left," he said, watching Jack closely. "Seems he got a message from someone... signed 'Black Pearl' of all things. Imagine that," Will said, smiling widely. "A ship, writing a letter to a Commodore."

"No letter, love," Jack said, shrugging and looking down at his hands as he began to claw at the dirt beneath his nails. "More of a note, really."

"Why," Will asked, his voice full of wonderment. "Why the note to Norrington? Why the trip to London?"

Jack shrugged, lifting his head slightly. "No good to run away, Will," he said. "Solves nothing really. Postpones, maybe... doesn't solve."

"What did it say," Will asked, smiling softly still.

"What did what say," Jack asked, frowning.

"Norrington's note," Will answered with a tone that chastised Jack for his intentional obtuseness.

"Said you were home, love," Jack said, shrugging. "Said you were on the high seas, like your father before you, and you were safe."

"Why," Will asked, shaking his head.

Jack sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. "Because I knew that 'Lizabeth would get word eventually that you were gone... an' I knew that when she did, she'd want to know where you'd run off to."

"And you knew," Will said, cocking his head to the side. "That if she knew I was with you, she wouldn't worry."

"Aye," Jack said, nodding. "Got enough worry, I reckon."

"And narry a word to me," Will said with bewilderment. "Notes, plans, secret agendas... and nothing said to me."

Jack smiled. "An' if I had?"

"I would have been mad," Will said, smiling. "And rightly so."

"Sure, mate," Jack said. "But I still would have been right."

"That you would," Will said, reaching out to grab Jack's hand. "Cleverness, Jack... always been your strong suit. Next to skullduggery, anyway."

"Serves me most of the time, love," Jack said.

"Most of the time," Will echoed, searching Jack's face.

"And this time, Will?" He licked his lips as he finally allowed Will an accurate look at his eyes. "This time how does it serve me?"

"Serves you well," Will said, leaning forward and kissing Jack lightly on the forehead. "That is... if you'll still have me on board."

Jack allowed himself a small smile as he leaned back against the wall behind the bed before returning his expression to one of nonchalance. "Don't know, love," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Depends on what you bring to the table."

"Love," Will said softly.

"Love," Jack echoed, raising his eyebrow further.

"And," Will said, his eyebrow quirking up as a nearly uncanny reflection of Jack's. "Swordsmanship not to be topped."

Jack's mouth finally quirked up in a grin more like his usual as he leaned forward. "Now there's the makin's of a fine pirate."

"Thank you," Will said softly, smiling more affectionately at Jack than Jack usually allowed him to. "For..."

Jack didn't let him finish, leaning forward and pulling on Will's hand until Will landed somewhat on top of him. "Welcome, love," he whispered, kissing Will softly and lingeringly before pulling back. "Bit selfishly though... more for me than you."

"Just the same," Will said, smiling at him and reaching down to throw the map off the bed and working his fingers into Jack's drawstrings on his pants. "Thank you."

"I can think of a few ways for you to properly thank me," Jack said with a scandalous smile, lacing his fingers into Will's hair and tightening his grip slightly. "Might take a while though..."

"Got a while," Will said into his chest, his tongue darting out to lick at the dip in his abdomen. "Got a lifetime of while's."


	5. insert: Love Just Is

**Love Just Is**

_Notes: Takes place within' Cleverness, between where Jack leaves Will with Elizabeth and when Will winds up coming back. It's more of an 'insert' than a story in and of itself._

Jack looked up abruptly, surprised at Gibbs' sudden nearness. He frowned at him and turned back to his ale, tapping his fingers on the bar. He sighed inwardly as Gibbs sat next to him and continued to look at him with a slight smirk on his face. "I think I might be slippin' Jack," he said, leaning forward. "Took me a bit too long to catch on to this one."

Jack looked at him again, his frown deepening. "What one, mate?"

"I thought it odd, us docking in London. Thought to me'self, Jack must've lost his mind, docking in the heartland of the British Law... Lord knows Commodore Norrington's got 'is men 'round here briefed on the likes of us." He nodded, taking a sip of his own drink before continuing. "Then I caught on... bout the time you walked in here's when it dawned on me."

Jack rolled his eyes at Gibbs' rambling ways, turning to face him more fully. "Get on with it, mate."

"So I was thinkin', who is it Jack knows in London," he said, looking at Jack and quirking an eyebrow up. At Jack's reticence to meet his eyes his smile broadened. "Then I realized, it's not who Jack knows... it's who Will knows."

"Mind yer own, Gibbs," Jack growled, gulping down the last of his ale and hitting the bar a little harder than was expressly needed for another.

"An' then you came prowlin' in here like a tiger wantin' out of 'is cage at the circus, an' I knew that's what it must be," Gibbs continued, not deterred by Jack's surly expression. "Said to me'self, that explains it. Jack's brought Will back to his Elizabeth."

He tried to not let the reference of Elizabeth being Will's sting him, but sting him it did. "I'm warnin' you, mate... leave well enough alone..."

Gibbs laughed, a bit heartier than Jack would have thought him likely to do, and clapped a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You're a good man, Jack."

"Cap'n Jack," Jack growled, glaring at him. "Cap'n to you... and you're oversteppin' your bounds, mate."

"Hogwash," Gibbs said, still smiling cajolingly at Jack. "You know you need to talk to someone, so cut the bullshit, Jack."

Jack sighed, wrapping long fingers around the handle to the newly refreshed mug of ale and concentrating on the dark amber liquid contained within. "Talk nothin' mate... what's done is done."

"Thing that I can't understand," Gibbs continued, motioning for his own mug to be refilled. "Is why Will would request such a thing of you... knowin' as he does how you feel for him." He smiled and shook his head. "Shoulda known better though... should 'ave realized Will'd never ask it of you. You, on the other, would of him."

Jack couldn't help the small smile that escaped out, shaking his head as he laughed slightly. "Anyone ever told you you're a little more observant than makes one comfortable?"

Gibbs nodded, jostling Jack's shoulders with the hand that was still clamped firmly on them. "Out with it."

"Will didn't know," Jack said softly. "He needed it though, and... well, I meant to give it to him."

Gibbs nodded, licking the beer that had splashed onto his hand off. "I'd wager a guess he was pretty peeved at you for keepin' it secret from 'im."

Jack smiled softly, darting his eyes to look at Gibbs quickly. "You'd be a rich man if you put money on all the things you'd wager on."

Gibbs laughed, nodding his head. "Already am rich, Jack. Rich enough, thanks to the likes of you."

Jack reached over and place a hand on Gibbs leg, squeezing slightly. "You're a good man Gibbs," he said softly. "Knowin' when I need to be pressed."

Gibbs nodded, patting Jack's hand before removing it. "Jus' so you don't go getting' any ideas," he said with a wink. "So it were your idea, planned, executed, and secreted by you... s'what I'd like to know is what's got you all upset?"

Jack shrugged, swirling his mug around, careful not to spill it. "M'not upset."

Gibbs laughed. "Right... an Cotton lost his tongue on account of eating one too many grapes... acidic buggers that they are."

Jack laughed lightly, setting his mug down to run his hands over his face. "Your perception is grating on my nerves, Gibbs."

Gibbs let his hand drop from Jack's shoulders and looked him square in the eye. "Jack, we've known each other goin' on ten years now, aye?"

"Aye," Jack said, nodding.

"I know when yer upset, mate... can see it a mile away." He paused, tapping his fingers on the counter for a moment before continuing. "So best I can figure is... Will's either peeved, and reasonably so I might add, that you've gone behind his back... or you're worried that Will's left you for his Elizabeth."

"I've no way of knowin' his choice yet," Jack said softly, digging out the dirt from beneath his nails, even as the back of his mind told him Will would be laughing at him for doing so. Will had always said he knew when Jack was truly upset by how clean his fingernails were. "Just left him... them... naught but an hour ago."

"Ah," Gibbs said, nodding sagely. "That'll eat you alive, that will... the waiting. Just get it over always is easier, ain' it?"

Jack nodded, taking a rather large gulp from his mug. "Quicker the better."

Gibbs leaned in closer to Jack, resting his hand on Jack's shoulder and smiling at him. "He loves you, mate."

Jack shrugged. "Loves 'Lizabeth too, though, don' he?"

Gibbs nodded. "Reckon he does," he said, squeezing Jack's shoulder. "Loves you, though, as well. I say he'll be back."

Jack laughed, looking at him. "You say that like you're certain."

Gibbs nodded. "I'd even wager on it... were I a wagerin' man."

Jack shook his head, unconvinced. "He's loved her since he met her... goin' on 10 years, mate."

"Love is love, Jack," Gibbs said softly. "Don't matter if it's a month, a year, or a decade... Love, when it's true... is just that."

Jack nodded, looking at him. "An' how do I know it isn't truer with 'Lizabeth?"

Gibbs pinched his lips together, sitting back in his chair. "Well," he said, shrugging. "Guess that's why you forced his hand, Jack... find out once an' fer all. Sped up the process by forcing the stars into alignment before nature intended."

Jack nodded. "Thought it were the best plan of action," he said softly.

"An' now," Gibbs asked, raising an eyebrow. "Not so sure?"

Jack shook his head, unable to meet his eyes. "Not as, no."

Gibbs smiled at him, standing up. Placing a hand on Jack's back he winked at him. "As I said, mate... the boy loves you. I say he'll be back before we set sail in the morn'."

Jack nodded, smiling at Gibbs as he made his way back over to Anamaria and the crew. Pushing his chair back he threw a few dollars on the bar to pay for his tab and stole the mug for himself on his way out. He wanted to believe Gibbs, for he knew that Gibbs was rarely wrong. He couldn't let himself though, because that gave him hope, and hope was good for nothing but being crushed.


	6. pt 4: Two Jacks

**Two Jacks**

A lot of people get caught up in the notion that things are or aren't. They think of things as good or bad. Godly or evil. Black or white. Too few people realize that nothing ever is black and white, nothing ever is inherently good or bad, godly or evil. Things, people, situations, there are yings and yangs to everything, and more often than not there's more than just a few interpretations of any one thing. Everyone sees, thinks, or feels their own way, and if you take two people from the same situation, you're likely to get two completely different takes.

People are like that too. Many would try to have you believe that a man is either this or that, that they can't be both. The fact of the matter is, they are both, and they're many other things as well. Most men, and women as well to a lesser degree, have at least two personas. This isn't madness, this is a way to keep sane. A man cannot be one way their whole life, steadfast, through mutiny or love or day or night.

This is true of Jack as well. Will has thought long and hard about how to define Jack and has come up dreadfully short of a whole picture. He knows Jack perhaps better than anyone, and all he's come up with is that there are simply two Jack Sparrows: the one he shows the world, and the one he shows Will.

On deck, as Captain, he's steadfast, and sure, barking orders and smiling to himself as his crew scrambles around at his beck and call. He stands at the helm, compass in hand, nodding as Gibbs tells him how far they are from port. He tells Gibbs when to check the maps, and where to scout their next voyage to. He is perhaps toughest on Anamaria, which is either because her response of flashing eyes and spit riddled curses are fun to watch in Jack's somewhat perverse way, or because he knows she is the most talented of the bunch, woman or not.

At night though, and in the early hours of the morning, that's when Will's Jack surfaced. Callused hands roam Will's body even when they're not making love, simple touches to the back of Will's neck as they talk or fingers in Will's hair showing the tenderness contained within the pirate. Will's come to know more about Jack and his past over the past few months than anyone else had ever cared to know. The good, the bad, and the ugly as well.

What was hardest though was reconciling the two in his own head Will found. There was almost a visible flip of a switch when Jack turned from lover to Captain, and the loss of light from his eyes was almost painful for Will to witness. He wasn't surprised when Jack began leaving the room before Will awoke, because Jack had an uncanny ability to read Will and must have known that the metamorphosis pained Will too much to witness daily.

Which is not to say that Jack doesn't find small ways to show his love to Will even in the company of others. A secret smile, a saved seat around the table at dinner, a hand on the shoulder followed by a wink. It used to confuse him, bother him, that Jack wouldn't show the crew the Jack he'd come to know behind closed doors. He thought that Jack was a wonderful person, one whom made it even more worth it to follow loyally and defend to the death.

He came to realize though that perhaps Jack had shown that side once before, and was rewarded by a betrayal so hurtful Will couldn't even begin to comprehend it. Perhaps aboard the Pearl a decade ago Captain Jack Sparrow had been the smiling, winking, light-hearted person Will knew him to be in the company of two. Perhaps that's how Barbossa had managed to weasel his way out on top in the end. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and then leave them stranded on a God forsaken island for the buzzards to feast on.

There was one other person aboard this ship that knew the other Jack as well, though he'd never willingly admit to it. He'd know the Jack of before the mutiny, and he'd known him directly after it. He'd known him throughout the years since as well, and the unspoken bond between Captain and First Mate was palpable. Will thought maybe he should be jealous of the man, but as much as he thought that he couldn't muster up the emotion towards the man.

If it were any man but Gibbs Will might have been offended that Jack would choose him over Will as First Mate, but Gibbs was a good man, and knew a might more than Will did about the sea's temper and rituals. Besides that, he'd been a good friend to Jack and Will alike, and was likely the first to know when their relationship had taken a turn from cohort to lover. He also knew when to tell Will to leave well enough alone.

"Awful quiet, love," Jack said, breaking into his internal monologue as he turned onto his side. "Composing a sonnet for your dear ole captain, are ya?"

Will laughed, looking at him and shaking his head. "Just thinking about the two Jacks."

Jack nodded, settling back on his back and lacing his fingers on his stomach. "Aye... one-eyed, or otherwise?"

Will laughed again. "Not cards, Jack... you."

Jack's eyes closed as a smile played over his face. "More 'an two, I'd think."

"More," Will asked, watching him smile into the darkness penetrated only by light blue moonlight.

"At least three, love," he said, nodding his head resolutely. "There's Captain me... there's Pirate me..." He opened an eye, peeking at Will. "An' then there's your me."

"And my you... is he your favorite?"

Jack laughed. "Don't know if I 'ave a favorite me, love. Think I love all me me's."

Will shifted, turning on his shoulder and reaching out to rest a hand on Jack's chest, his fingers brushing lightly over the marred bronze skin of the older man. "He's mine," he said softly, bending to place a kiss to Jack's chest, mindful of the bullet wounds that Jack never wanted touched.

Jack's hand came to rest on the back of his head, pulling him up for a soft exploratory kiss before releasing him. "An' the other'ns? Are you not fond of them?"

"Not as fond, no," Will said honestly, looking into Jack's coal eyes.

"I know it bothers you, love," Jack said, a regretful look flickering over his visage.

"It's fine, Jack," Will said, smiling and bending to kiss him again.

"No," Jack said, pulling his head back slightly. "Let me explain, Will."

"You don't have to explain, Jack... I understand it."

Jack nodded, running a finger lightly down the side of Will's face and across his lips. Sliding it back up he wound his fingers in Will's slightly wavy locks, smiling at him. "I have to be those guys out there, Will. It's not that I want to, but without them... I wouldn't get to be your me, not ever."

Will frowned. "I don't..."

"I have to be detached as Captain," he whispered, his eyes serious and searching. "I can't let them think I have a weakness... they see a weakness, love, and it's off to that island again for good ole Jack."

Will shook his head. "They wouldn't do that, Jack..."

Jack's mouth lifted up into a slow smile as he shook his head. "You're naïve, Will."

"I'm not," Will said, feeling unreasonably affronted by a comment that was probably more true than he wanted to admit. "You can trust them... you can trust Gibbs."

"I do trust Gibbs," Jack said, nodding. "Gibbs has known me near my whole life... the part of it that counts anyway. Knew me as Cap'n Jack the former, 's well as the present. Knew me when I was half a man."

Will shook his head, reaching out to brush Jack's hair back. "You weren't half a man..."

"A pirate captain without 'is ship is half a man, mate," Jack said, smiling amusedly. "Any way you cut it." When Will started to speak again Jack stopped him with no more than a raise of the eyebrows. "I was a bitter man then... good fer nothin' sod of a man. Angry at my men, angry at men in general... angry at God hisself."

"For good reason," Will insisted.

Jack laughed, pulling Will onto his chest and wrapping his arms around him. "You sound like a child, Will... so defensive of me. 'No one talks about Jack like that...' you're the most earnest person I know, love."

Will smiled against Jack's chest, brushing his fingers down Jack's side. "Just because I'm earnest doesn't mean I'm a child."

"Aye," Jack said, nodding and resting his chin on Will's crown. "What I meant, love, is you're innocent yet. See the world through rose colored spectacles... don't quite see the injustices the way an old dog like me does."

Will pulled back, looking at Jack with a frown. "If you're saying I'm ignorant to the sorrows of the world, you're wrong."

"I'm not, love," he said, smiling comfortingly at him. "I'm saying even though you know them, you've yet to become jaded."

Will continued to frown but allowed Jack to pull him back into his embrace, tapping his fingers on Jack's chest. "Ever stop to think perhaps you're too jaded?"

Jack laughed, running his fingers through Will's head to assuage any residual hurt feelings. "No such thing in this world, Will. Perhaps in yours, back in Port Royal, when a bad day is running low on scrap metal... but not in mine, ours now. Not when you're a captain, when you're a pirate." He nodded again, looking down at the top of Will's head. "Healthy dose of skepticism is required, necessary, in our world."

"But when does healthy cross over into overindulgence," Will asked, lifting his head again, reaching up a hand to rest on Jack's neck, passing a thumb over his adam's apple. "When does it cloud your judgment in the other direction?"

"Can't be too jaded yet, love," Jack whispered, smiling down at him. "Still had enough room in me heart to let you in, didn' I?"

Will smiled, allowing Jack to pull him into another searing kiss, still marveling at the way this man could make him melt just by touching lip to lip. Jack's hand wound in his hair, pulling him closer to him, close enough for Will to feel his teeth biting into his lips before Jack's tongue delved in his mouth.

Reluctantly Jack pulled back, cupping Will's face in his hands and bending forward to kiss Will's forehead. "Get some sleep, love. S'late."

Will smiled, his heart still flipping when Jack showed those rare moments of sweetness. "I understand it, Jack," he said, rolling onto Jack's chest and curling up for sleep. "I wish the things that forced you to become jaded hadn't happened... but I understand it."

"I know you do, love," Jack said softly, resting his lips lightly into Will's hair. "I just pray they never happen to you."


	7. pt 5: Burden

**Burden**

Olivier was French, and he had a quiet sensuality that bled into every step he took and look he gave. He had long nimble fingers, and every time they touched her they made her shiver. Sometimes from lust, sometimes from disgust. She wasn't sure if it was disgust with him or herself, but that didn't matter to her. It was a distraction, a reprehensible and self-destructive distraction, but one she needed.

Governor Swann's illness was slowly robbing him of his health and wit, and it robbed Elizabeth of hers in turn. When they'd first arrived in London he'd bought a house on the countryside specifically for its back yard garden. He would spend hours out there, reading the works of Shakespeare and catching up on his correspondence, smiling as birds twittered around him happily. These days all he could manage was to sit up enough in bed to see the tops of the rose bushes out of the window.

Elizabeth found herself taking over his duties, ordering the maids she'd once called friends around as her father had. Telling them to fix this for supper on that day, and to not forget to dust the library that afternoon. She traveled to the doctors in town on their specified days to give a weekly briefing of her father's progress and receive corresponding advice on how to proceed. She brought him breakfast in the morning, and regretfully made her father open his mouth to reveal the pills he'd tried to hide in his cheek.

The maids offered to serve him his food. They offered to change his bedclothes and they offered to assist him to the bathroom when he grew too feeble to make it on his own. She insisted on doing it herself though, feeling that what he'd done for her as a child was her duty to do for him now. He'd objected at first, but as the disease ebbed away his awareness his protestations abated.

In the three years they'd been in London Elizabeth had aged ten years, her eyes lacking the luster they'd once had, her hair becoming flat and listless. The bags under her eyes were a dark purple hue uncovered, and took going on half an hour to cover. The only time she allowed for herself were Sunday afternoons in the park, and the only time she enjoyed herself was when she was listening to the poetic renderings read on those days.

The first year had been good, though. The first year had been easy, when he was still able to travel the two miles to town and keep up a good conversation with her. When he would spend time in his garden, and before the words on the pages of his favorite books began to swim. She would write letters back home, to servants they'd left behind, and to her beloved Will. Will, whom she'd never stopped loving, no matter what she'd led him to believe.

Things started to get tough at the end of the year though, right around the time the leaves started to fall off the oak trees surrounding their abode. Her father started complaining that his oranges tasted rancid, that his bread was stale. He would become angry when his wine started to taste like nothing, berating their ever-faithful servant Anna for watering down his drinks.

Where she used to spend hours diligently pouring her heart out onto the page for Will, she now spent trying to calm her father. The time she used to spend copying over her letters on scented parchment in curly and pristine penmanship she now spent trying to distract her father from his failing health. By the time she realized it had been over two weeks since she'd put pen to paper for Will she didn't know how to begin.

She used to fill her pages with wishes and dreams she'd had, telling him what they should do when she arrived back home. She would smile as she wrote of places she wanted to show him, giggle to herself imagining the wide grin he'd have on his face when he read her reaction to the first poetry reading she'd gone to in the park. Most of them contained a bare minimum of facts and a maximum of professions of love and well wishes.

Now her letters were half as long, and laborious to write. She didn't allow herself to sound as despondent as she now felt. She told him nothing of how much older her father looked or how much older she felt. She told him about plays she'd seen, poems she'd heard, and sometimes restaurants her father's associates in London had taken her to. She tried to sound happy, because she knew Will would suffer for her if she did otherwise.

When the weather grew hot again, though, she could no longer keep up the pretense for even him. Her letters grew less and less long, and written much more sporadically. Instead of smiling while writing she held back tears, knowing that one of these days she was going to have to just let Will go. She knew it was unfair of her to mislead him, but she also knew that he'd never let her let him go if he knew the reasons behind it.

She let her words become less flowery, less conversational and more formal. She knew Will was the kind of person to read into things, to read between the lines, and she counted on the fact that her detachment would hurt him. It pained her to hurt him purposefully, but in the end she felt it would be less hurtful than if she did it a year from now. Less hurtful to him, and to herself as well.

Perhaps the most loathsome emotion she felt in those hot summer days was her wish that her father's suffering would end. The problem was that in order for his suffering to end, he would have to pass onto the next world and leave this one behind. She hated the way she felt when she allowed her thoughts to turn this way. She hated the fact that the feeling wasn't completely selfless.

She was cold now, impersonal to anyone she came across, even the maids she'd known her whole life. The only one who got to see what was left of her soft underbelly was her father, and he wasn't even aware enough to appreciate it.

The first time Elizabeth met Olivier was at a poetry reading in the park. It was broad daylight, but his eyes made her think of pitch-black night in the middle of the ocean. He'd approached her with a feline grace and a feral grin. She'd been disinterested, but she started seeing him in the park in each subsequent trip and he always asked her for dinner. When he caught her on a particularly emotionally withering day, she'd given in.

He reminded her of a statue, handsome and dark and brooding on the outside, but shallow. It was cool to the touch, and not something you really thought about after leaving. When you were looking at it though, it mesmerized you. When you looked at the curves and the carvings and ran your fingers over it, you were captivated by its beauty. As you turned your back though, the vision of it melded with all the other statues you'd seen in your life, the only difference being that this was the most recent.

He had a way about him, perhaps in his eyes, of making her feel like nothing else in the world mattered. He touched her unnecessarily, on the back, on the side, on the arm. He talked with a flow that lulled her and whispered things in her ear that she didn't understand. He talked of trees, and clouds, and the things poetry was made of, but it rang hollow to her ears. The way he spoke of love and of the beautiful things in life made her think he knew nothing of either. He didn't ask about her personal life, and she didn't bother to volunteer anything.

It turned physical quickly between them. He'd kissed her on their second outing, and on their fourth she'd gone to his sparse apartment with him and drank Brandy. When he'd kissed her she felt a warmth spread through her as she pictured Will's face instead of his. She shushed him when he talked by pressing her lips harder against his, bringing his hands to her body. She was gone ten minutes after it was over, crying into the balmy night for a loss of innocence that she had intended to share with one person only.

It didn't stop there, though. She started making excuses to go into town, knocking on his door sometimes before noon struck. He always smiled when he saw her and didn't hesitate to kiss her as soon as the door was closed. She wasn't surprised that he knew her intentions, she'd never pretended to be interested in him as a person.

He touched a part of her that she needed touched though. Olivier was older by ten years, and he knew how to make a woman melt with arousal. He would graze his teeth over her breast with just the right amount of pressure, and run his hand down her side as his tongue assuaged the reddened flesh.

He was gentle, and careful, and loving almost when he was inside of her. When he lay beside her though, she felt even more alone than she had when she'd arrived. She always swore this would be the last trip she made to his apartment, but then two days would pass and she'd find herself right back where she started.

By the time Will and Jack had rode into town she was resigned to the fact that this would be her life, caring for her father and having empty sex with a French stranger that she knew nothing about nor cared to. When Anna had told her Will Turner was at the door her first reaction had been to sink to the floor. She felt as if the world was threatening to make her face the things she'd become and she wasn't ready.

She'd gone out anyway, because Will was waiting, and if there was one thing she couldn't say no to it was Will Turner. When she'd seen him her heart had exploded and she almost regretted that it hadn't taken the rest of her with it. She'd focused on Jack first, trying to calm herself down, but he'd left all too quickly. She and Will had spent hours talking and not one word out of her mouth had been the truth.

When he told her about his relationship with Jack she could see the love he wasn't speaking of behind his hazel eyes, and it shot straight through to her heart. Will had moved on, perhaps without meaning to, and it was what she had wanted. It was what she had hoped for when she decided to take herself out of his life, but it was not something she was prepared to witness first hand.

She said her father was doing better than expected, knowing full well that he lay in that bed 30 pounds lighter unable to lift a piece of paper, never mind the heavy texts that she now had to read for him. She told him she was sorry for the dissipating quality of her letters, that she'd not done it on purpose. She acted regretful as she told him of Olivier, leaving out the fact that she cared nothing for him. She said all was well, and watched with a throbbing ache in her heart as the last bit of happiness drained out of her as he walked away.

"Do you love me," she asked softly, turning her body away from him, cringing as he wrapped long arms around her naked body.

"Do you me," he asked, a smile curving into her back. "I was to understand this is about comfort, not love."

She closed her eyes around the pain clutching in her heart. "I think myself incapable of love anymore," she said softly.

He cooed into her back, running his hand down her side and placing a kiss to the back of her neck. "Not incapable... unwilling."

"I was in love once," she said softly, grabbing his hand and holding it to her tightly.

"He was a fool," he whispered, resting his head in the crook of her neck. "To let you go, he was a fool."

"I let him go," she said, her eyes filling with tears. She cursed them, but did not bother to reach up and wipe them away.

"Did he not love you?"

"He did," she said, her voice coming out as a mere whisper. "He does."

"Then you are the fool," Olivier said, laughing lightly.

She sighed, burrowing further into the bed sheets, hating the way his sticky skin stuck to her back. "I had no other choice."

"There are always choices," he said, pulling back to brush her hair back and pulling on her shoulder till she lay on her back. He smiled down at her and ran a finger down her cheek, tracing the path of her tears. "Tell me, love. Tell me your heartache."

She took a deep breath and tried to muster her strength together to get out of bed. She wasn't prepared to tell him her story, she wasn't prepared to tell anyone her story. He held her there with his eyes and light touches though and she found herself sobbing before the first word came out.

"My father is dying."

"Oh, cherie," he said softly, propping his head in his elbow and reaching over to wipe futilely at her tears.

"I lived in Port Royal, and I've known Will my whole... half of my life," she said, trying to curtail her sobs and gripping his free hand in hers and drawing strength from it. "We were in love... we only got to be together for a short... but father got ill. We had to travel here for his doctors, but they can't..." She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "They don't know how to help him."

"And your mother," he asked softly, placing a kiss to her temple as he gathered her in his arms.

"Dead," she said. "I've never known her."

"And this Will... he did not follow you here," he asked, running his fingers through her hair.

"I wouldn't let him," she said with a small smile. "He would have followed me to the ends of the earth and back if I'd let him."

She closed her eyes as he brushed her hair with his fingers, letting him try to soothe her. This was why she kept coming back, for that gentle touch. He was always so gentle, so caring in his touch. She wondered now if she had been too cold towards Olivier, if perhaps she had been able to open herself up more he could truly have been more to her than he was.

"Why did you not let him," he asked quietly. "I've lost loved ones, Elizabeth... it's hard enough to do, why do it alone?"

"He's never approved of Will," she answered. "We are... we are 'important people' in Port Royal... it didn't do for the Governor's daughter to run around with a blacksmith."

He pulled back slightly, looking at her. "Governor's daughter?"

She smiled, nodding. "I forget sometimes that you really know so little about me."

"That was your choice, darling," he said, laying back down and resuming his ministrations. "I didn't push because I wanted you to tell me of your own timing."

"You've lost loved ones," she asked, looking up at him.

He nodded. "My grandmother stayed with us in the months before she died. It was difficult to witness, but it was hardest on my Mother."

She looked down, tracing invisible lines on his arm, chewing on her lip. "I have to do it alone," she said. "I'm his only child..."

"You have no one to help you," he asked.

She shook her head. "I've maids, but... I can't seem to let myself let them help me."

He nodded. "So this is a burden you've put on yourself then."

She shrugged. "I don't know why... it snuck up on me... it seemed like one day I just woke up and realized I was all alone in this. One day I woke up and I had to make all the phone calls, I had to feed him all his meals... I, me alone, had to take care of him."

He laughed slightly, pressing his mouth into her thick dark hair. "It is funny to me that the isolated always seem to take actions to further isolate themselves," he said. "They think it hopeless, so therefore it becomes so."

"He came to me last month," she said softly, not knowing she would be saying it before having said it. Wishing she could take it back the instant it left her mouth.

"Your Will did," Olivier asked.

"Not mine any longer," she said, pain pulling on her heart. "He is the sea's... he is Jack's... he is no longer mine. And I made him so..." she said, breaking off in a sob that didn't quite make it to the surface.

"Is it too late," he asked her then, looking down at her.

"Too late for what," she asked.

"To reclaim him... to find him and make him yours again."

She shook her head, shrugging. "He doesn't deserve me," she said. "I am too broken for him now."

"Perhaps it is his duty to mend you, then," he said.

"I can't leave my father," she said as the tears began to fall again. "He's so fragile... so close to..." she faded, finding she couldn't finish the thought.

"Perhaps it is mine then," he said softly. "If you'll permit me."

She looked up at him, surprise etched on her face. "Yours?"

He smiled down at her. "Surely you know I love you, Elizabeth," he said, kind and caring eyes staring into hers. "Have since I first laid eyes on you."

"You..."

"It has not been the easiest thing I've done," he said with a small laugh, reaching out and tracing her jaw-line with a finger. "You've closed the walls around you so tightly... but I do."

"Why," she breathed out. "I've used you... I've not treated you well at all..."

He nodded. "I know."

"Why then," she asked, pulling back from him.

"Because," he said with a shrug, not continuing.

She sat up, lowering her eyes to her lap. "You don't deserve me either."

He sat up and ran a hand down her back, taking her chin in his hand and turning her to face him. "The only one who doesn't deserve you, Elizabeth, is yourself."

She opened her mouth to question him further but he silenced her with a kiss, tender and sweet. He laid back down in the bed, bringing her with him and brought her onto his chest. "Let others in, Elizabeth... let us help you, you don't have to be as alone as you've made yourself."


	8. back story: Tales of Piracy

**Tales of Piracy**

"S'not true," the younger man cawed, sloshing his beer around. "Ghosts ain't real."

"They are real," the fat one with the grizzled beard said. "An' they run the pirate ship called The Black Pearl. Grizzly bunch they are."

"An' you've met 'em," the younger man asked.

"Aye," he said, nodding his head. "Under pale moonlight they turn to bones, an' I faced 'em and came out whole."

The younger man laughed. "They would have flayed you... gutted you alive!"

The fat man shook his head. "Why would they, I gave them no cause... helped 'em even."

"Helped?"

"Aye," he answered, grinning and letting out a laugh that chilled Jack to his bones as he resisted the urge to face the two drunkards. "They wanted me plunder, an' I gave it to 'em... then I tol' 'em where to get more."

The younger man laughed. "Alright, if ye know 'em, what're they're names?"

"Barbossa's the cap'n," the man said slowly, mulling things over in his head. "An' there's two gits called Pintel and Rigetti... A nasty lookin' colored feller by the name of Koehler..."

Jack ground his teeth together, images of his former mates making his guts turn black with bitterness. His hands clenched around the mug of ale in front of him and his body twitched to turn and face the two drunkards, spit bile at them for speaking of them as if they were exciting and interesting. Bloody mutineers is what they were, not interesting, not legends... leeches of the worst breed.

"An' they couldn't die," the younger one was asking. "They was cursed with livin' forever? Doesn't sound like much of a curse to me..."

"Aye," the fat man said, his speech filled with a condescending all-knowing tone. "But 'tis a curse when you can no longer taste, or feel, or take of a woman."

"They can't have sex," the younger man asked, aghast. "Well'n what good's it to be a pirate?!"

"Tha's the point, mate," the fat man said with a chuckle. "S'point of a curse."

"Still though... eternal life," the younger man said.

'Fool,' thought Jack.

"Though, there was one that died, least accordin' to the Cap'n," the fat man said.

"How? How can the undead die if the curse is that they can't?"

"What did they say his name was," the fat man questioned, tapping nasty fingernails into the wooden table. "Bootsie... nay, that wasn't it..."

Jack closed his eyes, a cold chill washing over him. 'Don't say it... don't say what I think..."

"Somethin' with a boot... or was it..." The fat man clubbed a hand against the table in frustration. "Anyway, the Cap'n took a dislikin' to 'im, and they killed him."

Jack whirled around, taking two large strides over to the table. "Bootstrap Bill was 'is name," he growled, grabbing a chair and sitting in front of the ugly jaundiced sailor. "An' you're goin' to tell me now, mate, how it is ole Bootstrap died when he's cursed to not."

Both men stared at him in shock, the younger one shrinking back slightly and looking to the older fatter one for reassurance. "You can't just barge in on two men havin' a conversation, there..." he ventured, his voice showing his trepidation.

"Looks like I 'ave now, doesn't it," Jack said with a sneer of a smile before turning coal eyes to the fat man. "Out with it."

"Well," the fat man spluttered out, letting out a nervous laugh. "So far as I understand, they sunk him."

Jack shook his head. "Can't drown a dead man made of bones, mate," he growled, slamming a hand on the table. "Gotta do better'n that."

"They, um..." the fat man rolls his eyes skyward, trying to recollect memories from years before. "They tied 'is shoes to a cannon I think is what they did..."

Jack sat still for a moment, anger and fear causing his hands to shake so much he hid them under the table. "Still doesn't explain how the undead dies."

"Why do you want to know," the fat man asked, glaring at Jack. "Why are you questioning me in front of my boy..."

Jack's eyes flicked to the younger man, seeing the same blue eyes echoing the fat man's. "So this is your son?"

The fat man nodded. "He is."

"So what we have here is dear old father trying to impress his son," Jack said, relief ready to spill forth once this man admitted to the lie.

"No," the fat man said, shaking his head, his eyes wide with fear as Jack looked at him with haunted eyes. "'Sides, why would I make up a story about a bloody Bootstrap Bill... isn't that what you called 'im?"

"Aye," Jack said, nodding, feeling the sinkin' in his chest take hold of his vocal chords. "How'd he die... what did they tell you?"

The fat man looked at his son before continuing. "They tied his boots to a cannon and shot him to the depths of the crushin' oblivion... shattered him to bits is what they did... so far as I understand that is."

"Tied 'is..." Jack sat back, the ache in his chest making him numb all over. "Shatter..."

The fat man leaned forward, his face concerned. "You alright, mate? You look a bit shaky..."

"That's none of your concern," Jack spat out, standing up and angrily shoving the chair away from him, toppling it onto the floor in his haste. "An' your sure he's dead?"

The younger one looked between his father and Jack, his eyes wide with fear. "He was your mate then," he asked. "You knew 'im?"

Jack pursed his lips together, glowering at the young man. "He was," he said, cursing his voice for shaking.

"I'm sorry," the fat man said, his voice sincere at last. "If I'd known his mate was listenin'..."

Jack didn't stay for the rest, turning on his heel and walking out of the tavern and into the cold black night. He looked up at the moon and felt the bitter bile rise once again in his throat. Sorrow and heartache crushed at his gut until he was bent over a barrel of fish, retching what bread and alcohol he still had in his system.

Six years of wishing for Bootstrap to come and find him, of the two of them forging their own scourge of the Caribbean crew.

Six years of trying not to let himself think that ole William Turner was in on the mutiny, of trying to believe that his friend wouldn't have turned his back on him like that.

Six years of reminding himself that the day would come when he'd be able to confront him, to ask him point blank to assuage his doubts as to his loyalties.

Six years... and all of it, down the drain because father wanted to regale his son with tales of piracy.


	9. pt 6: The Former and the Latter

_**Notes:** It's a rare tale, as told by Joshamee Gibbs! Wanted to explore Gibbs a bit, specifically Gibbs and Jack, so's I did. Also, I want to mention, this is slightly AU. In a previous fic I mentioned that Gibbs knew Jack before he was mutineered and in the y ears since. In the movie, though, I noticed that Gibbs says that the time when Jack helmed The Black Pearl, it was before he knew him. So, I'm off on that. But, it's already and established fact in my fic, so... I'm going to stick to that. Sorry if that's disconcerting._

**The Former and the Latter**

When Joshamee Gibbs met him he'd been young and sprightly, full of energy and optimism. He loved nothing more than the ocean, the feel of alcohol going down his throat, and the elation that follows conning someone. He'd tried to con Gibbs out of gunning him down for stealing a tankard of ale out of the tavern Gibbs frequented, and despite himself Gibbs had allowed him to. There was something in the kid's eyes, despite the fluttering step, despite the glint of his teeth, that told Gibbs that the boy might be a scalawag, might be a pirate, but he was a good kid nonetheless.

He hadn't shot the boy, but he also hadn't let him get away with the tankard of ale. Instead he'd pulled up two stools that were used for milking cows and offered to share a few with the excitable pirate. When the boy had readily agreed, sitting quickly down and holding out a cup for Gibbs to fill he'd thought to himself that the boy was still relatively young to the practice of piracy. He kept a watchful eye on him the whole time, knowing that he was part of the same crew as Hector Barbossa, and knowing that Barbossa was a man that turned even his seasoned stomach.

When William Turner the Senior, then only known to him as Bootstrap Bill, turned up Gibbs relaxed slightly. Bootstrap was not that different from his son, at least on looks. He was thin, and fine featured, and loyalty radiated off him through his eyes. He was tougher though, more seasoned, and much less chivalrous than the son that never knew him. His hair was lighter, more blonde streaked from the sun than his son's would wind up being. His face was more tanned, and had more lines in it. The biggest difference though was how closed in on himself he was, how reticent he was to share his feelings. Senior and Junior were polar opposites in that respect.

He'd berated the boy for trying to steal from Gibbs and smiled down at him affectionately immediately afterwards. He called him Captain, and that's when Gibbs learned the boy's name. Captain Jack Sparrow, this spry young thing sitting before him, was the captain of the Black Pearl. Bootstrap had sat down with them, grabbing Jack's drink from his hands and swallowing the rest of it, reaching past Gibbs to fill it up again.

He'd already heard things of the young Captain sitting before him, and they made him wary. Jack and a fellow pirate friend of his had commandeered the Black Pearl right from under what should have been the very watchful eyes of a notoriously menacing Spaniard crew... but not before plying the crew with too many drinks, and just enough arsenic to make them sick enough to turn their backs on their ship. The problem was that Jack's cohort had been Hector Barbossa, and that meant Barbossa was Jack's first mate as well.

Jack began to talk about their history together, informing Gibbs that William Turner, which is what he'd called him 'out o' respect, 'course,' had been the man to make him the man he was today. 'Took me under 'is wing is what he did,' he'd said with a wry grin up at Bootstrap. 'An look what it got him... me as 'is captain... takin' orders from under me.' It wouldn't come out to Gibbs till much later that Bootstrap was more the captain of that ship than Jack was for the first year or so, seeing as how Jack had run almost all of his plans past him before even Barbossa for approval.

He was a merchant sailor at that time, and when he wasn't onboard some other man's ship he frequented Tortuga. It was there that he saw the crew of the Black Pearl most often, and there that he and Jack and Bootstrap became mates. He'd known Bootstrap for some time, and that was enough of a validation for him to take a liking to Jack. That, and the fact that Jack was so alive, so vibrant, and so practiced at ingratiating himself to those that he thought could service him in the future. Gibbs couldn't service him, but the fact that he and Bootstrap were friends was enough for Jack to try his damndest to get the older man to like him. Little did Jack know Gibbs had liked him from that first night.

There was a period there for two years where he didn't see either Jack or Bootstrap, nor did he see any of the Black Pearl's crew. He began to wonder if something awful hadn't happened to them rounding the end of the second year, and sent silent prayers that they at least went out valiantly. Eventually, though, the crew turned up again, minus it's Captain and it's Captain's mentor, and Gibbs didn't have to ask to know something awful had happened. Something that was, most likely, decidedly not noble.

The next time he saw Jack was another six months later, and he hadn't been even a shadow of the kid he'd grown quite fond of. He looked the same, and he had the same quick grin, but his eyes lacked the openness they'd once had. They'd been haunted, and distrusting, and they flinched even when it was Gibbs alone approaching him. His voice, once so earnest and uplifting, had turned hard and bitter. He nearly spat the story of mutiny at Gibbs, his eyes daring him to laugh, to find some kind of joy in Jack's humiliating ruination.

He'd grown to trust Gibbs again though, after working his nerves to a bloody end. Gibbs had tried to provide shelter to Jack those first few months, but Jack would have none of it. 'Taken care of me'self since I was but a child, Gibbs,' he'd spit at him. 'Take care o' me'self now just fine, thank'ya very much.' Gibbs had found him sleeping in the muck with the pigs behind his room though, and noticed that the blanket and makeshift pillow he'd put out for Jack got used.

Jack finally agreed to stay in Gibbs room for a fee, a few trinkets or doubloons he could scrounge up, and only for a while. He'd gathered his strength together, regaining his nerve, learning to become less jumpy and skittish than he had been when Gibbs had found him again. The first time Jack laughed Gibbs had nearly spit his ale in Jack's face he'd been so surprised. The hardness in his eyes never fully went away, but it softened enough for Gibbs to find with great relief that at least the kid's spirit hadn't been entirely beaten out of him.

He never was sure what it was that was the turning point for Jack Sparrow's rise again, but one day he noticed that the spring was back in the kid's step and the glow, while dulled, was back in his eyes. Jack told him he was going to find himself a ship, and find himself a crew, and he was going to bloody well get his ship back from that blasted Barbossa if it was the last thing he did. 'It'll take a lot of plannin', an' I'll have to wait for the opportune moment, but... mark me words, Gibbs,' he'd said, that glint thankfully winking at Gibbs from the coal depths of his eyes. 'I'll have me ship back.'

He'd come back to Tortuga a broken and failed man five years before, and he was leaving as the man Gibbs had found himself enamored with on the first night he'd met him. He'd thanked Gibbs the best way he could, with trinkets and alcohol, and a wink of those long lashes, and as he'd left he'd called over his shoulder that he'd always see to it that Gibbs never went for want. He'd kept his promise, and over the following five years he'd come back to Tortuga twice a year at the least to give Gibbs half of what he'd had left.

Jack told him finally, after Gibbs had become his first mate once the Pearl was his again, that his turning point had been hearing that Bootstrap was dead. 'I'd found out me only true mate was dead, an' even though I'd always in the back of me mind wondered whether or not he'd stabbed me in the back with the rest o' the lot, I wanted blood, man. I wanted blood on William's behalf, which for some reason was more of a reason than me own behalf,' he'd said in a low growl one late night after Will had fallen asleep. 'Always loved him, despite the fact that I never was sure whether or not he'd betrayed me. Did too much good for me for me to turn my back on 'im. Owed him that much, I thought.'

Watching Jack and Will together reminded him only slightly of the former Turner and Sparrow relationship. While Jack had clearly been smitten with Bootstrap, and Bootstrap had by no doubts had an affinity for Jack, theirs was a relationship of kinship. They'd had a camaraderie, and easiness, that was too steadfast to have been fettered with lover's quarrels and the inherent torment that comes along with great loves.

Will and Jack argued, on deck as well as off, and they certainly had their spats. There were moments when Gibbs was sure that Will Turner was going to stalk off the ship at the next dock and never return, but the kid never did. Jack and Bootstrap had a relationship that was one of the strongest Gibbs had seen, but the one he had with Will made that one look like rubbish.

They had a connection that was too strong to be broken by trivial arguments and lover's quarrels. In Will's eyes Jack had found the peace he'd been missing since he'd been marooned, and while he may not know how to show it properly he did the best he could. What's more, Will understood that... though sometimes it took Gibbs subtle prodding to make him remember.

Will sat down by Gibbs with a big sigh and slapped his cup onto the table, sloshing the dark amber of the ale on the wooden ship's table. "He's infuriating," he said, his voice dark with anger.

Gibbs laughed, putting an arm around Will's shoulders. "What now, Turner?"

Will's eyes were wide and questioning, his mouth quirked in an angry line. "He treats me like a kid!"

Gibbs nodded, sopping up the ale as it threatened to drizzle down onto his trousers from the edge of the table. "You are a kid, aren't ya?"

"I'm not," Will yelled, glaring at the back of Jack's head as he did. "I'm 21 years old, now."

Gibbs stifled his laughter, looking as sympathetically as he could at Will. "He only means it in the best ways, Turner."

"Yeah, well," Will said, probably unaware of how petulant he sounded. "It's maddening."

"What's he done," Gibbs asked, smiling fondly at the younger version of ole Bootstrap.

"Says I'm naïve if I think I can handle this next venture," he spat out at Gibbs, his voice pitched a bit higher in a dubious manner. "Says I have to man the ship this time, that I can't come on land."

Gibbs nodded. "Rightly so," he said, holding up a hand to stop Will's tirade from beginning. "He's been here before, mate... knows what he's getting into. Too much possibility for mistake."

"And what makes you think I'd be the one to make a mistake," Will asked, glowering at him. "I'm the best swordsman on this ship, Gibbs, and you know it."

"Yes," Gibbs said, nodding comfortingly. "But swordsmanship won't get you out of everything."

"Then why are we doing this," Will asked, throwing his hands up helplessly. "If this is so daunting and dangerous, why risk it?"

"Ends worth the means, son," Gibbs said with a shrug. "We've been there, the both of us. We know the islanders. We know the back ways, we know how to get to where we're going, know what twigs to avoid stepping on."

Will sulked in silence for a moment, his arms crossed over his chest in defiance. "Doesn't change the fact that he think of me as a kid. An incompetent, worthless, whelp."

Gibbs couldn't hold back his laugh at that, thumping the kid on the back. "Doubt he said all that, Turner." Will shrugged, looking like he was on the verge of tears. Gibbs felt sympathy sweep through him and threw an arm around Will's shoulders. "He only did it because he don't want nothin' to happen to you, love," he said softly, smiling down at him. "Can't bare to lose you."

Will sighed, turning his gaze once again to Jack's back. "I'm not a kid," he said again, sounding less angered and more defeated.

"An' nobody thinks you are, Turner," Gibbs said, knowing it wouldn't take much more sweet talking to get the kid's spirits back in the right direction. "We all know you're a young man now... but we don't want to see you hurt unnecessarily, none of us. Least of all him."

"I know," Will finally said, smiling slightly at Gibbs. "He just... he has a way of saying things..."

"I know, kid," Gibbs said, laughing and squeezing Will's shoulders before dropping his arm. "Has a way of twisting 'is thoughts around so's they come out sounding offensive when he don't mean for 'em to."

"And I," Will said, his smile turning wry and apologetic, "have a way of taking insult when I should know better."

Gibbs smiled up at Will as he stood and started off towards the cabin's, probably to compose himself further and get ready to apologize to Jack for flying off the handle. Not that Jack needed the apology, but that Will was always willing to apologize when he felt one was owed. At the shadow looming over him on the table, Gibbs turned to see Jack standing behind him looking at him uncertainly. "Sit down, Cap'n," he said with a grin, motioning to the space formerly occupied by Will.

"The whelp's mad at me again," Jack said, his voice sounding just vaguely wary.

"Thinks you think he's an insolent kid, Jack," Gibbs said, looking levelly at him. "An' callin' 'im a whelp ain't gonna 'xactly go towards makin' him think otherwise."

"Didn't call him it to his face," Jack said, a small sly grin forming on his face. "Called 'im it to you."

"Do you really think he's not ready for this mission," Gibbs asked, leaning forward and talking quietly. "Seems ready to me."

Jack shook his head. "No," he said, his voice leaving room for no argument. "Last time I was here I almost got my throat slit by a man dressed all in black," he said. "No room for mistake here, Gibbs... I won't have his throat slit on my watch."

"It's just," Gibbs started, holding up a hand for Jack to let him finish. "Something that I think even Will hasn't thought of, is that... doesn't this make him look weak to the crew? Doesn't this make him look incapable in their eyes?"

Jack's eyes flashed dangerously, his mouth turning down in a frown. "Don't try to sway me, Gibbs," he said, glaring at him. "I don't care if the crew looks down on him, I'll just as soon replace all of 'em than care what they think. I won't have him killed, man. Not on my watch."

Gibbs looked into Jack's eyes and saw a fear there that he hadn't seen in a long time and realized that maybe Jack's love for Will Turner surpassed even what he'd already thought. "Aye," he said with a nod and a smile. "Understood, Cap'n."

Jack smiled, putting an arm around Gibbs. "Thought so, mate," he said, knocking his head against Gibbs' before pulling back. "So'd ya manage to talk some sense into the boy?"

"Think so," Gibbs said with a nod. "Didn't have to, I don't think. He already knew where you were coming from, I just had to remind him."

Jack nodded and stood, running his hands down his clothes, absentmindedly smoothing out the wrinkles that he could. "Good man," he said, nodding sharply at Gibbs and winking at him. "Wouldn't do without you, Gibbs."

With a jaunt in his step Jack turned and headed straight for his cabin, leaving Gibbs to smile after him knowingly.

"Will," Jack called softly as he stepped lightly into his room, peering around the door. "You in 'ere, love?"

Will turned to him, looking up at him from the book in his lap. "Yeah, Jack... reading."

Jack nodded, looking around the room as if he were admiring the décor, despite the fact that he'd been the one to decorate it. "What are you reading?"

Will set the book down on the table by the bed and faced Jack, his mouth set in a straight line. "Come here."

Jack rose an eyebrow at him dubiously, stepping cautiously closer to the bed. "Aye, Will?"

"Over here," Will said, smiling slightly at the look on Jack's face. "Closer." He waited until Jack was within grabbing distance and then threw him onto the bed on his back, covering his body with his and laughing down into Jack's surprised expression. "Thought I was going to berate you again, did you?"

Jack frowned up at him, feeling slightly dizzy. "Thought did cross me mind, yes."

"I'm prepared to let this go," Will said, raising and quirking an eyebrow threateningly at him. "On one condition."

Jack nodded, still looking at him with doubtful eyes. "Aye?"

"Why do you not want me to go," Will asked.

"I don't want you to be harmed," Jack said, cutting off abruptly as Will dug an elbow into his stomach.

"Why, Jack, do you not want me to go?"

"It's dangerous, an' I don't want you to be hurt..."

"Jack... one last chance," Will said, his mouth set in a determined line. "Why don't you want me to go."

Jack looked up at him, reaching a hand out to grab onto a lock of his hair and winding it around his finger, licking his lips. "The answer is simply," he said, smiling slightly. "I love you, Will." Will's grin was maybe the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen, even compared to a lifetime full of sunsets and rises.

"Thought so," Will said softly before descending on Jack and kissing him.


	10. insert: Don't Have the Words

**Don't Have the Words**

The bed shook violently, waking Will up from a particularly deep slumber. He lay there, confused as to why he was awakened, when he noticed Jack's ragged breathing behind him. He tried to muster up the strength to open his eyes, the back of his mind yelling at him that Jack was upset, but he was just too tired. His hand flailed back and made contact with Jack's hip, swatting it listlessly. "M'ck?"

"Sorry, love," the pirate muttered, out of breath but trying to hide it. "Go back to sleep."

Will drew a deep breath in through his nose, still battling tooth and nail with slumber, blinking his aching eyes open and cringing as even the moonlight was too much. "Dream," he croaked out, running his hand down Jack's naked thigh, beginning to get aggravated with himself that he couldn't seem to turn around to see Jack's face.

He felt Jack's arm slink around his chest, drawing him close to his chest in a tight hug. Jack's chin propped itself on Will's shoulder blade, his nose burrowing into his neck. "Sleep, Will," the man said, his voice heavy with slumber or emotion Will couldn't tell.

"Jack," Will said, his voice coming out as a pitiful groan, sleepy and unwilling to work in accordance with his brain.

"Yes, a dream," Jack answered, kissing Will's neck lightly and running a hand down Will's chest slowly, his warm hand making Will smile despite his lethargy.

"A bad one," Will asked as the fog in his brain began to clear, his hand reaching up to lace his fingers with Jack's.

"Awful," Jack whispered, burrowing in closer to Will's back, his arm around him tightening even more. "Horrible."

"What of," Will asked, leaning his head back into Jack's, smiling again as Jack kissed his neck once more.

"Shhh," Jack said softly. "I won't even speak of it."

"Jack--"

"Bad omen to speak of it, Will," Jack said, his voice dark with sincerity. "Can't tell you."

Will sighed, shifting slightly so he could turn his head and just barely see the braid of Jack's beard on his shoulder and the tip of his nose. "Jack, tell me."

"Suffice it to say," Jack said as a shiver rang through him, startling Will with its strength. "It involved my losing you, an' we'll leave it at that."

Will felt a smile creep onto his face and felt a little guilty at deriving joy out of Jack's fear of losing him. "Won't lose me, Jack," he said, hugging Jack's arms around him. "I'll never leave."

"Wasn't of your own accord, love," Jack said, resting his lips against Will's throat and breathing slowly through his nose.

"Oh," Will said quietly, tightening his grip on Jack's hands. "Well, it was just a dream, Jack. I'm right here."

"I know," Jack said, a small smile forming on Will's throat. "Go back to sleep."

Will would have protested but his lids were already drooping. He snuggled as close to Jack as he could and allowed his brain to begin the process of shutting down again. Just as he felt himself begin to float on the periphery of slumber he heard Jack's breath hitch in his throat and his eyes sprang open before he could even tell them to. "Jack," he said questioningly, turning to look at him and frowning as Jack suddenly let go of him and sat up. "Jack, what is it?"

"Go to sleep, Will," Jack said, his voice a harsh whisper as his lips pierced back together, his eyes shifting to stare out into the moonlight through the window. He almost managed to sound angry if there wasn't that hitch to his voice and in his breath.

"It's okay," Will said, feeling suddenly awake, reaching up to draw Jack's hand from his folded arms, cupping it with his other. "I'm alright, Jack, it was just a dream."

Jack didn't even bother to wipe away the tears as they began to fall, instead avoiding Will's gaze and staring out of the window as if something had captivated his attention. "I thought the worst part would be losing you," he said, his voice trembling just the slightest bit. "But it wasn't. Not even nearly."

Will sat up and reached over to touch Jack, frowning when Jack flinched slightly away from him. "I'm right here. I'm fine."

"The worst part," Jack continued as if he hadn't heard him. "Was the feeling that I let you go without you ever truly knowing what you mean to me. That you'd gone to your... without ever knowing-- truly, honestly knowing-- deep down in your gut, exactly what you meant to me."

Will watched with a feeling of helplessness as tears streaked down his lover's face, not even trying to touch him for fear of breaking whatever control Jack needed to continue. "I know," he said softly, tears springing to his own eyes just by watching Jack's. "Jack, I know what I mean to you."

Jack shook his head, finally facing him. Will felt as if his insides were being ripped out by the fear and pain in the older man's eyes. The intensity of them bowled him over, leaving him speechless and without the ability to move. "No," Jack said, shaking his head. "You don't. You couldn't possibly begin to grasp even to a minute degree what you mean to me."

"Ja--"

He turned suddenly, grabbing Will's shoulders. "You must listen to me," he rasped out, blinking owlishly past tears that he didn't even notice. "I don't have the ability, Will, to express what you mean to me. I don't have the words-- the words I need to use to tell you what I feel for you don't even exist," he said, shaking his head rapidly. "I want to write poetry for you, I want to write sonnets, and books, and shanties. I can't though, because I just can't wrap me mind around those kinds of things. I can't even read half of 'em, I just know that that's what you deserve."

Will leaned forward, clasping his hands around Jack's face. "Jack, I know. I know all that."

"No," Jack said, shaking his head, his own hands raising to grasp Will's as well. "I'd do anything for you. I'd take any sword, any shot, any noose, before yours. If I could die so that you'd live one minute longer, I'd die without a second's thought," he said, shifting onto his knees and pulling Will up with him. "I don't say it, and I know I should, but I've made it so hard on myself to share my emotions."

"And I understand why, Jack," Will said, shaking his head, his voice pleading with Jack to understand him. "I don't fault you. What you don't say in words you say in other ways, and what matters is that I know."

"But you should hear it," Jack shouted, leaning even closer still. "I should tell you every minute of every day how much I love you, Will. I should say it to everyone I meet, and show you with every breath I take." He closed his eyes for a moment, overtaken with the feeling of being unable to express himself properly. "I don't deserve you, Will," he said with a soft smile. "You treat me so well--"

"And so do you," Will insisted.

"You trust me so easily," he continued, shaking his head in awe. "With your heart, body and soul. And I do as well, but every time I try to tell you, the words get twisted in me head and all that comes out is a wink and a slurred and garbled sentence that is five worlds away from what I intended to say."

"Jack," Will said, his heart warm and threatening to burst, tears running down his face in desperation. "Don't you know that I know you well enough to read between the lines? Don't you know that when you wink at me I know you're telling me you love me? That when you pass me the Rum, you're telling me you love me? That when you look at me with that look in your eye that only I get to see, and when you smile at me with that smile that's only ever directed at me, that I know-- I know-- you're telling me you love me?"

Jack's face crumbled before his eyes and he sank down to sit on his haunches, his arms lifting helplessly. "But I want to say it, Will. I need you to know. I need to know you know."

"I do," Will said, pitching forward and capturing Jack's lips with his, pouring his soul back into Jack with every swipe of his tongue. Pulling back he glared at Jack until he saw Jack's mouth lift up in the tiniest bit of a smile. "I know."

"Do you," Jack asked, his eyes as vulnerable as Will had ever seen them. His lips poked out like a five year olds did when they were being punished, and hands grabbed at Will's with a grip strong enough to steady a mule. "Do you really?"

"If you love me half as much as I love you, Jack," Will said, kissing him softly as he paused. "If you love me a fourth as much as I do, I'm the luckiest man on earth."

"Twice as much," Jack said, leaning forward and capturing Will's mouth with his. "Four times as much-- ten!"

Will laughed, kissing Jack again before pulling away. "Then this,' he said, sweeping the space between the two of them. "This isn't needed. This profession, this confession, of your love? It's not necessary. You needn't say it again, and you needn't worry ever—ever-- that I don't already know what you can't say in words."

"But I wish I could," Jack whispered, drawing Will to his chest and hugging him tightly.

"You can, and you do," Will said, smiling and reaching up to wipe at the last bit of his tears. "Words or no."


End file.
